Spirits of the Mist
by Icarax
Summary: I wake up in a swamp and find out I've changed into a mechanical, oversized insect! With the help of two friends who suffered the same fate, I begin a rough game of 'capture the flag' in the Nabreus Deadlands. Our goal? Capture the keystones and go home!
1. I'm a what!

**Spirits of the Mist**

If you're looking for a regular FF XII story with grand plotschemes and XII characters, this is not the fic for you. There are other great fics out there that serve that purpose. This is a fanfic set in the land of Ivalice, more specifically the Nabreus Deadlands and focusses on me and some friends in a somewhat bizarre adventure. If that's your kind of thing, read on!

**1. I'm a**** what?!**

I yawned as I lazily started to become awake. I had had a nice pleasant dream about something that I didn't know and had slept well. I felt refreshed and prepared to open my eyes. Yet, I hesitated a bit. Something felt a bit off, but I couldn't place my finger on it. I shrugged and opened my eyes. Bad idea. I yawned again and prepared to sit up. It was then I noticed I was laying on the floor of what appeared to be a swamp. That's… shocking to say the least. When you go upstairs in your house and get in your bed to sleep, you don't expect to wake up in a swamp the next morning.

Thinking I was still dreaming, I brought up my hand to my head to give myself a good smack when I noticed I didn't have hands anymore. That's… more than shocking. When you go bed having a nice pair of hands each with five fingers, you don't expect to wake up with your hands having turned into long, thin, sickle-like blades as long as me in my entire length. And not just any sickle blades, no sir! As I told you, they were as long as an average seventeen-year old boy. They were straight, with both ends curving slightly until both tips of these blades were very sharp. Next, these blade-like hands of me were made out of a metal-like something. And they were white, and spiked, and now and then a stroke of red interrupted the white.

Okay, as you can see, that is not normal. In fact it's far from normal. It doesn't help that after you find out your hands have become blade-like structures, you notice your arms have become a bit shorter, your skin has become metal and is coloured black. I gulped and tried to get on my feet. Only, I didn't have feet anymore. Not normal feet at least. My legs had become much, much shorter until they were just as long as my arms and they had gotten black metallic skin as well. And my feet, feh… I had sickle-like structures for feet. These sickles were only half as long as my 'hands' and were of the same design: white, pointed, spiked and with red here and there. Fantastic.

Struggling, I placed these sickle-like feet of mine on the ground. Not easy. You're so limited in your footing of all you have to stand on is the point of a blade. But with the tips of my bladefeet placed on the ground, I managed to push myself up somewhat until came off the ground a little bit. I stood very wobbly on my legs and arms. It was obvious I could no longer walk on two feet. I tried to stand up a bit higher on my blades. It was so hard to find your balance I almost smacked down on the swampfloor again. Eventually, though, I stood solid on the ground, and straighter. I almost could walk as upright as I could as when I was a normal human, given how long my bladehands were.

Now that I stood, I looked at my body cringed at the sight. As if arms and legs out of metal and hands at feet as blades weren't enough, my body had followed their example! It was longer and thinner. My shoulders were less broad and the further down to my hips you went, the thinner I became. My entire torso was solid and almost one piece, meaning that I couldn't bend a lot no matter how much I wanted to. Not so surprising, if your skin is nothing but one plate of solid black metal. Only my chest and hips differed. My hips had white metal as skin and my chest was extra protected with a thick layer of white metal. I guessed I still had important organs encased in my weird body.

I noticed water nearby and decided I wanted to know how my face looked. I moved slowly towards it, stumbling all the while as I was unused still to walking on these blade-like limbs of mine. As I stood by the water, I realized again my back could not bend enough. Slowly I placed my right bladehand in the water a bit. The ground was solid enough. Then I placed my other in as well and lowered my neck and face closer to the water so I could see. Dreadful didn't even begin to describe it, and yes, that meant my face had changed!

I didn't even recognize myself! It's very hard to describe. My face itself I couldn't see in fact. All I saw were my big glowing red eyes. My face – or head, whatever – was covered by some sort of helmet. One I couldn't remove. It was like a sphere-half, white and metallic. On top of it, there was a long row of spikes that extended far beyond the helmet that was now fused to my face. If it were hair, it would have looked like it was in a ponytail. Ah, very hard to describe or to imagine if you don't have a picture! My neck you probably guessed. It was longer, thinner, black and had metal as skin.

But at that moment, a picture was as far from my mind as anything. I stared disbelieving at my reflection in the murky water. Either I was dreaming, or this was real and I should be screaming. I gave myself a hard slap against the face with the side of one of my hands. It hurt only ever so slightly, but it proved I was awake. Okay, so there was only one option left. I tipped back my head, opened my mouth – wherever it was located now with that strange helmet-face-thingy fused to my head – and screamed. Very loudly.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!"

--

I sighed and sank down on a rather large rock. Sitting was a very difficult thing now that I could no longer bend my back very much. I had to constantly keep myself from falling with my bladehands. This had to be some sort of sick joke. I had been turned into a monstrous, human-sized, biomechanical insect-like creature, for heaven's sake! And to top it all off, I was in some sort of swamp! Looking around, I realized I had no idea where I was. Mist and murky waters were everywhere. Kinda spooky. Insects would zoom around from time to time. I heard a rustling in the bushes. Startled, I got up, almost tripping over my own bladelimbs as I did so. I turned in the direction of the sound. Luckily, even though my main body could barely bend, my other limbs still bend at the normal places.

"Who's there?" I called out. The only answer I got was a monstrous big toad leaping at me. I let out a surprised yell and staggered backwards on my bladed hands and feet, almost falling over as I did so. But the toad kept coming. It leaped at me. I let out a yelp of fright as I saw the toad come closer and closer to me. But then, as soon as it touched me, it was somehow repelled, and rather forcefully. The toad sailed through the air and landed somewhere in the swampwaters.

I blinked. "Well, that was odd." I said slowly. Wherever I was, I wasn't at home anymore. No way we had such big toads. Sure nuclear waste did stuff to things, but it still didn't turn toads into godzillas. Or me into a freakish insect-robot-thing. I noticed a small pebble nearby. I decided to try and figure something out. I picked it up. Oh, forgot to say, I had found out I still had some sort of thumb on my bladehands. All the way down at the end of my hands I had another, small blade-like finger that I could use to grab things with. But when I closed my 'hand' the thumb almost completely disappeared under my larger blade. Very hard to image, I know! But this is just weird stuff! So bear with me!

I looked at the pebble in my claws. I focussed on it, like I had focussed on the toad as it had leapt towards me. The pebble was suddenly repelled, yet less forcefully. It landed barely a feet away from me. I picked it up again and then focussed on it a lot harder. This time, the pebble was repelled very forcefully. It sailed through the air and landed somewhere in the swamp, out of sight. I blinked again as I realized that I could apparently repel things from me by focussing on them. I wondered if I had to actually touch things to repel them. I glanced at a nearby plant. I focussed on it, and sure, the plant bent away from me, but it wasn't repelled. It didn't sail through the air. I wondered if that was because it was stuck to the ground. The ground…

Suddenly I got an exciting thought. I focussed on the ground, trying to repel it. Instead of repelling the ground, the ground repelled me! I was launched slightly into the air. Startled, I broke my concentration and landed back on the ground. Excited, I focussed harder on the ground. I was launched higher in the air. Now I was hovering about three metres above it. I increased my focus and soared even higher. This was amazing! I could repel myself of the ground to fly!

I focussed harder on the ground, then on some plants behind me. Both repelled me, causing me to surge forward. I was actually flying! I quickly found out that I had to shift my focus now and then. Constantly I needed to focus on the ground to stay in the air, and from time to time I had to focus on plants closer to me to keep myself going forward. After a bit of practicing I learned I could use my new bladed limbs to steer somewhat, but repulsion was much easier to suddenly change direction. My body was streamlined, my limbs cut through the air. It was amazing! For a moment I forgot about everything and simply enjoyed the fact that I was flying! I soared over the waters of the swamp, through the mist and above it. Oh this was so much easier than walking!

And I now could get a better view of my surroundings. Apparently, I was in a very large swamp-like area. There were chunks of stone, that looked like remains of buildings, sticking out of the swamp here and there. Then I noticed that in the centre of the swamp, there was some sort of ruined city, looking like it had half sunken in the swamp. I gasped and decided to investigate. I repelled myself forward and the closer I came to the ruins, the more familiar they became to me. They looked an awful lot like the destroyed city of Nabudis, now a Necrohol… But that couldn't be! That place existed in a game only! Then I looked at myself and groaned. I remembered I was at that moment an insect-like, biomechanical monstrosity that could repel whatever it focussed on. Being in a game-universe really didn't seem that weird compared to that. I gently landed on the roof of the fallen capital and gazed over the swamp. This swamp… It had to be the Nabreus Deadlands, or whatever they were called.

Great, just great. I seriously began to wonder if I just hadn't become insane and was hallucinating. I mean, no way this could happen, right? As I wondered if I should slap myself again, I noticed something gliding through the mist not too far away. I couldn't see what it was, but it looked a bit like an insect, like I did. A very, very large insect. A very large, biomechanical insect. I didn't waste time. I repelled myself of the roof and flew towards the thing. Perhaps it could explain some things to me!

--

**And that's that! I've been transformed into a partly-bio, partly-mechanical, insect-like monster and ended up in a swamp in FF XII. Can you say help? **

**Next chapter: I meet up with the yellow insect-like thing and am surprised by its identity! **


	2. Oh no, not you too!

**2. Oh no, not you too!**

The yellow creature flew fast, I noticed. I had a rather hard time catching up, and I was already focussing as hard as I could on things below me so I would get repelled as forcefully as possible. It was flying faster still and I began to wonder if I could ever catch up. I noticed it had wings, a bit like a beetle. Did natural wings give so much better flight than just repulsion? My eyes widened slightly as I realized something. Maybe…

This was going to be hard. I needed to focus on three things at once! Still, with what little focus I could manage without falling to the ground, I willed the air around the thing I was pursuing to repel it towards the ground. Not too forcefully, just, enough to slow it down. At first, the yellow creature seemed to be spiralling out of control towards the ground, but then it regained its control over flight and landed, grumbling all the way, gently on the ground. I caught up with it and slowly released my focus on the ground, causing me to land gently behind it.

Before I could say anything, the yellow, insect-like, mechanical-like creature turned around to face me and I found myself suddenly surrounded by five more of these creatures, all looking exactly the same.

"Who are you?" It asked with a female voice. "Why are you following me?" I narrowed my eyes. The voice sounded familiar, despite sounding more… guttural? I cocked my head to one side. Was it really…?

"Ether?" I then slowly asked. The girl's eyes widened. Apparently she recognized my voice as well, despite me sounding more… soft, like I was constantly speaking in whispers.

"Icarax?" She then asked back. I nodded. At once, the five other Ethers around me disappeared.

"It's me, no matter how I look." I said with a shrug. I looked her over. There was little about her, aside from her voice, that could tell you she was a woman. "But I see you received a… makeover… as well."

"Yeah. But gods, look at you! You're walking on four blade-like legs!"

"You're one to talk." I snorted. "I don't know if you noticed, but your head looks like a scarab. And you're yellow and black. And you have wings like a beetle. And… Well, to keep it short, you're an insect-like, biomechanical monstrosity like I am."

"How tactful." She hissed, her metallic wings fluttering in irritation. I sighed. Wonderful. Not only did I end up here, so did one of my friends. But on the other hand, at least it meant I wasn't alone in my misery. I was rally getting annoyed and became quickly tired of walking around on four blade-like limbs like an insect.

I sighed and looked at my friend. "How did you end up here, Ether?"

She shrugged. I was a bit jealous of her. Sure she had a scarabhead now, but at least she still walked around on two legs. Granted, her feet just existed out of just two toes, and those toes were just blade-like, metal claws, but hey, better than walking around on four legs. But in closer inspection, I noticed her hands weren't far better of than mine. They were blade-like pincers, like mine, just not as long. But hey, at least she didn't have to walk around on them.

"I have no idea how in heaven's name I wound up in this swamp, looking like I do now…" She sighed and shook her head. "I went to sleep and woke up only to be here."

"Then we're the same." I admitted. "I wonder if there is a way to get out of here and become normal again." I glanced at her sideways. "You do know where we are, right?"

"Nabreus Deadlands, Ivalice." She replied flatly. "Hard not to notice when you're flying around above the mist and see the ruins of Nabudis right in the middle of the swamp."

"Yeah." I looked around, it looked like the mist was thickening. "What do you think of going somewhere above the mist before it has become so thick we can't see our own ugly selves anymore?"

"Sounds good. I don't feel like being ambushed by the things that dwell here in this swamp, either." She spread her beetle-like wings and shot up in the sky quickly and without a sound. Shrugging, I repelled myself of the ground and flew after her.

Again, she was a fast flyer. I repelled myself as forcefully as possible and barely caught up with her.

"Ahem, care to fly a bit slower?" I shouted to her over the wind. She looked over her shoulder to me and slowed down a bit.

"Sorry. Didn't realize I could fly so fast." She looked me up and down then noticed I didn't have wings. "Speaking of flying, how do you fly?"

I quickly explained her how I could repel myself or other objects. "I guess I gained this ability when I became an insect."

She nodded knowingly. "Possible. After all, I found out that if I focus enough, I can summon past version of myself. As many as I need, for as long as I need."

I whistled. "That may come in handy. You know, if it weren't-"

I never finished that sentence, because at that moment, a loud scream could be heard from somewhere below in the mist.

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!"

Ether and me looked at each other, both of us surprised. I stopped, hovering perfectly still in mid air. Ether stopped as well. Both of us looked down to the mist and swamp below. Finally, I spoke up first.

"Is it just me, or did the voice who just screamed seem familiar?"

"It isn't just you, I thought I recognized it as well." Ether replied slowly.

"Do you think we should check it out?" I asked slowly, not certain of what I should do. Ether shrugged her now metallic and black shoulders.

"What do we have to loose?"

"Nothing, I guess." With that said, I slowly lowered my focus, causing me to gently descend to the swamp floor. My female companion followed quickly. Soon enough I was crawling over the swampfloor like an insect again, carefully placing my four limbs on the muddy ground, always testing first if the ground was solid enough. Ether just flew over the ground. Can't say I blamed her.

"Now, where did that scream come from… It's hard to orientate yourself with this mist." I muttered. Ether looked around carefully and intently. She didn't know either. I trudged through shallow water silently. I noticed that no matter what, these four bladelimbs of mine did make me very quiet as I moved. With a bit of practice, I could become very stealthy in this mist. The sound of grumbling reached my ears – wherever my ears were located now, because I was sure you couldn't see them on the outside of my head anymore – and I slowly walked in its direction, quietly mentioning Ether to follow me.

We came upon a little island in the middle of the shallow waters of the swamp. Some dead tree trunks had fallen over and now laid on it. Seated on one of them was what I at first glance mistook for a giant mosquito. Upon closer inspection, though, it became immediately clear to me that, for one, it was way too large to be a mosquito, and second, it was half-bio, half-mechanical like we two were. Great, fantastic, wonderful! Another poor sod who suffered our fate and now looked like an overgrown swamp insect robot. This poor guy was a bit short, was green and black and had, believe me or not, four arms and two legs. Great, six limbs, and I thought I had it bad walking around on four legs. His face was strangely twisted, too hard to describe. The most notable thing about it, though, was the stinger on the end of its… chin? A pair of mosquito-like wings sprouted from his shoulders. The upper two arms had, and I felt jealous again, just normal hands. Well, if you call three-fingered hands with huge claws normal. But hey, at least its better than a set of oversized pincers to walk around on. The second pair of arms only had hands with two fingers, each finger having a huge claw. To my surprise, the guy's feet were identical to his second pair of hands. And the most weird thing of all, was that his legs seemed to have two knees each. Too weird for words. Ether frowned at first as she looked upon our mosquito friend, who still hadn't noticed us. Then her eyes widened in realization. She left the safety of the mist and approached him.

"Munchin?"

--

**And cliffhanger-ish ending! Yayness, I'm not the only one who has become a biomechanical insect trapped in the Nabreus Deadlands in Ivalice. What will we do now? Is there any hope of escape this too weird for words nightmare? ****That's for me to know and for you to find out. :p**

**Images of the three insects (that's me, Daughter of Ether and Munchinmonster). Just put a dot . where the spaces are.**

**Ether:  
****www majhost com/gallery/Elpizo/SpiritsOfTheMist/ether jpg **

**Me (Icarax):  
****www majhost com/gallery/Elpizo/SpiritsOfTheMist/icarax jpg**

**Munchin:  
****www majhost com/gallery/Elpizo/SpiritsOfTheMist/munchin jpg**

--

**Next chapter: we three insects sob in each others claws and act like a miserable bunch when suddenly, someone comes up and tells us there's a way to go home and be normal again...**


	3. The gods are playing tricks on us

**3. The**** gods are playing tricks on us**

Munchin looked up and faced Ether. He stopped grumbling and mumbling in himself. His eyes narrowed. He didn't seem to recognize her. Can't say I blame the poor guy. Nobody would be able to recognize us now if it weren't for our voices.

"Do I know you?" He asked carefully.

Ether rolled her eyes. "Common, don't you recognize me?"

"Is that a serious question?" Munchin scoffed.

"Use your ears, jeez!" Ether shot back. "It's me, Ether."

Munchin's eyes went wide. It looked like he almost fell backwards. "Ether?! Is it really YOU?!" He scratched his head. Lucky guy, at least he still could do that. Even had four arms to do it. "I must be dreaming. Ether does not look like a metallic beetle with a scarab head."

Sighing, Ether gave him a whack against the head with one of her 'hands'. Not too hard, of course. Munchin shook his dazed head and glared at her.

"What was that for?!"

"Did it hurt?" She asked, annoyed.

"Hell yeah it did!" He screamed back.

"Then you know, this isn't a dream, unfortunately." She turned to me. "Icarax, get your butt over here."

Munchin looked up. "He's here too?"

As I scurried into view, I nodded. "Yeah, I'm here. No need to sound so disappointed about that."

He looked at me and blinked. Then he snickered and quickly placed a hand over his… Well, I can't say mouth because you couldn't see where that was.

"You've got… four legs!" He laughed. I glared at him.

"So? You've got four arms. Not to mention a seriously deformed face with a stinger on the front." I retorted.

His smile dropped. "Can't argue with you there." He sighed deeply. I looked at Ether, she too sighed. For completion's sake, I sighed too. Ether sat down next to Munchin. I, having difficulty enough to walk, could not sit down so easily, so I just remained standing. Damn having four legs. There was a long silence.

"So… What now?" I finally asked.

"What now what?" Munchin asked, confused.

"Well… What do we do now? We're here, we're insects, we're monstrosities and the entire crap. But what are we gonna do about it?"

My fellow victims both shrugged. "What do you think we can do about it?" Ether asked.

"I wouldn't ask for suggestions if I knew what we could do." I sneered.

She didn't reply, nether did Munchin. My heart sank. It became clear to me that none of us knew what to do. Simply said, at that moment I felt like we were screwed and condemned to spend the rest of our lives as oversized, biomechanical, insect-like freaks in the Nabreus Deadlands. There was a slight rumbling and I looked sheepishly at my stomach.

"Fantastic. I'm hungry and I can't even find my own mouth anymore." I muttered quietly. I looked at my two companions. "Regardless, I'm gonna look for something to eat."

Munchin jumped of the fallen tree. The sight of the two knees on each leg bending was so weird… I'd never get used to that. Insects, they have many knees. We don't. Or well, he did now because he looked like an insect and so did we, but I mean, when we were normal humans we did not have more than one knee on each leg.

"I'm going with you. You never know what one can find when looking for food." He told me.

Ether, not feeling like staying behind all by herself, decided to come along as well. I repelled myself of the ground and soared through the air, over the swamp, Munchin and Ether right at my side.

As the three of us flew over the swamp looking for something we perhaps could feed upon, a shimmering caught Ether's eye. She informed us of her find and flew down to investigate. Munchin and I exchanged glances.

"What do you think she has seen?" I asked.

Munchin just shrugged, then headed off after Ether. I watched him go for a moment, then shrugged as well and followed. When I landed on the swampfloor again, Ether was already trying to pry something out of the grasp of a plant. Yes, you read that right, the plant was actually actively trying to hold onto something.

"Let… go you stupid… vegetable!" She cursed. Munchin went over to help her. His four hands clawed, tugged and pulled at the plant in an effort to make it let go of whatever it was holding. At first I just stood there, watching. After all, how could I help? I needed my limbs to keep myself upright. When they still didn't succeed in making the plant loosen its grip on the object, I suggested to try and make the object repel itself from the plant. They agreed with my idea and backed off.

I now finally could get a look at what caught Ether's attention. It was some sort of glittering stone, perhaps a chunk of diamond or something like that, but with a strange symbol carved in it. I focussed on it, trying to make it repel the plant, but the grasp of the plant was too firm. Even great focus didn't make the stone repel the plant forcefully enough to be free from its grasp. Cursing, I gave up.

"It's no use." I grumbled. "Stupid plant." In my anger, I slammed my right blade-hand-pincer-whatever in the plant. What happened then was too weird for words. At first nothing happened, but then, before our startled eyes, the plant began to wriggle. And then, it began to wither away, like all moisture was being sucked from it. Soon enough, the plant was dead. Sucked dry. And… My hunger was gone. I realized with disgust what had just happened and slowly retreated my 'hand' from the now dead plant.

"Yuck!" I made a noise like I was about to vomit. "I just sucked that thing dry, like a leech!"

"Who cares, it's the result that matters." Ether snapped. She picked up the stone in her left pincer and looked at it curiously. "I wonder what this thing is. It's not a normal stone, that's for sure. Why is it here? What is it for? Why did that plant seem so eager to hold onto it?"

"Does it matter? Normal or not, it's still just a rock." Munchin sneered. "It won't change us back to normal, or take us home."

"Actually, it just might." A voice behind us said. We whirled around, startled. The sight that greeted us was that of an Occuria. And by the looks of it, it was the Leader of the Occuria, Gerun. If we still would have had them, our jaws would have dropped.

--

"YOU DID WHAT?!" The three of us shouted in unison, furious. If looks could kill, Gerun would have been ten times dead already. The Occuria sighed.

"I brought you here and made you into what you are now. Or actually, we Occuria did, though it was my idea."

Munchin cracked his knuckles, Ether snapped her mandibles and I slammed one of my handblades hard on the ground. "You've got some nerve!" I hissed. "If it weren't for the fact that you're an Undying, I would have killed you a hundred times by now!"

"How can you just float there saying calmly you made us monstrosities?!" Ether screamed, enraged. "I swear… I'd so strangle you now if I could!"

Munchin opened his mouth – well, he would have if he still had had it - to utter his own way of killing Gerun, but the Occuria spoke first.

"Would you just shut up and listen?!" He shouted. The three of us made a sneering sound, but fell silent. "Good, now listen up." Gerun continued. "We were bored, okay? You have no idea how boring it is living eternally up there in the clouds doing nothing. We can't even twist our thumps because we don't have those."

"Oh, so you thought, 'Hey, let's have a bit of fun and change three random people from another dimension into insect-like freaks!'. God, I wish I would get such brilliant ideas!" Ether snapped. Her anger hadn't decreased in the slightest, and nether had mine or Munchin's. Gerun ignored her comment.

"So I came up with a fun idea. We messed you up and dropped you in here for our amusement. Of course, that's not the amusing thing. The amusing thing will be watching how you gather the rest of the keystones." The Occuria continued. The nerve to say, with amusement, in our faces that we were changed into these freakish shapes for the amusement of some stuck-up gods… Still, with great difficulty, I forced myself to calm down and asked:

"And, pray tell, what are these keystones you're talking about?"

Gerun nodded at the stone Ether held in her pincer. "It's a stone like that one. That's one of the six. There are five others hidden in the swamp here, guarded by all kinds of things. If you can find them, and bring all six together, then the game's over and you can become normal again and go home."

"You call this a game? Oh my, why didn't you tell us sooner that this was supposed to be fun?" Munchin said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Then I wouldn't have wasted so much time being freaked out!"

Gerun remained unfazed. Though we couldn't see his face, we could feel he was smiling. "Now, now, young insects, why waste time being angry at me? If you want to get out of this game, there's only one way to do it. So get to it! Chop, chop! Amuse us with your struggles."

And with a plop, he vanished, leaving us behind, miserable, furious and still looking like monsters.

--

Ether had a fit. And a big one. She was pacing around on the swampfloor, only stopping to rip a tree in half, toss a huge boulder in the swamp, rip a monster to pieces or to glare at us and shout something. She was constantly shouting actually, cursing Gerun and telling us over and over again how she'd kill him if she got her hands, excuse me, pincers, on him. I have to admit, some of her ideas were as cool as they were gruesome, and I couldn't blame her for having them.

"I was right." I whispered to Munchin as we watched Ether kick a rotten tree into the swamp. "This all IS some kind of sick joke."

"Those Occuria have some messed up sense of humour." Munchin agreed. "Oh how I wish we could get our claws on them and do all those things Ether is thinking up right now."

"Yeah, well… As much as I would like it, the chance we'll be able to do that is as good as zero." I looked at Ether, who was still taking out her rage on her surroundings. I looked nervously at Munchin. "Do you think I should try to tell her to calm down so we can start looking for these keystones?"

"Seriously?" Munchin asked, his eyes wide with amazement. I nodded. "No." He said, matter-of-factly. I dropped my head and sighed.

"Man, this sucks." I was about to say something else, when another shout could be heard all over the swamp.

"YAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!"

Munchin, me and even Ether all looked in the direction of the sound. The mist had become less thick, allowing us to oversee rather much of the swamp. As of such, we could clearly see a red and silver figure searing over the surface of the swamp, shouting and laughing in excitement. I groaned inwardly. What now?

--

**So yeah, that's pretty much it. The Occuria were bored and now we're trapped in their sick joke. To make matters worse, a silver and red dude who's laughing like an idiot is now flying all over the swamp. Just as I thought things couldn't get worse, they DO get worse. Dear heaven, why us?**

**Next chapter: we get another shock as we discover the identity of the red and silver guy. What's worse, he isn't all that fond of our idea to gather the keystones and go home. **


	4. Red, silver and annoying

**4. Red, silver and annoying**

Ether, Munchin and me exchanged annoyed looks. Our day was bad enough as it is, did we really need a flying, laughing idiot ? Finally, after looking at him from in the distance for a while, Ether slowly turned to look at us.

"So… What do we do?" She asked slowly. "Do we go and see who this guy is?"

"I'm not really sure I want to meet him, to be honest. He kinda looked like us, biomechanical and all… And anybody who laughs in joy about that is not somebody I'm dying to meet." I replied thoughtfully.

"Don't worry Icarax, you won't meet him, he's gone already." Munchin said to me. I sighed in relief. I had had all I could take for one day.

"Well, I'm not sad about the fact we missed him. Rather, what do you say we set up camp somewhere and sleep over things a bit?" I suggested.

"Already? We've barely woken up." Ether said, surprised. I shrugged.

"You guys can do whatever you like, no problem, but I need to sort my thoughts out a bit. And best way for me to do that is to rest somewhere quiet." I explained patiently.

"Good luck finding some peace and quiet here in this swamp with that idiot zooming around." Munchin scoffed. I rolled my eyes.

"Why do you think I want to start looking for a place to camp _now_?"

--

The three of us agreed to find a place to rest. The Mist was becoming thicker again anyway, so looking for keystones would have been hard, or even a complete waste of time. I finally found a nice, dry island somewhere in the swamp. It was quite large. Big enough to have some mighty trees grow on it, at least. One tree had fallen over, however, and from the looks of it not too long ago. I choose that tree as my bed, it would make it easier for me to get on my feet again that way.

Ether had searched for materials to start a fire with. That was a no so easy task. One, it was very wet here in the swamp, so tough luck finding something dry. Two, there weren't that many trees here, fallen over or not, that could serve as fire wood. Still, don't ask me how she did it, she returned with her arms full.

"And if this isn't enough." She said as she dropped the wood on the ground. "We can always chop off some pieces of Icarax' bed."

"Over my dead body." I hissed. "Cut any tree you want, but not this one." I caressed the nice tree sweetly with my bladed hand. Ether shook her head at the sight. She turned to Munchin.

"Ayway, can you get this fire going, Munchin?" She asked our mosquito-like friend.

"Why me?" He asked, confused. "Can't you do it yourself?"

Annoyed, Ether waved her pincer-hands. "Hello? No hands? If I take a twig between my pincers I'll snap it in two before you can say 'insect'. Can't help it." She pointed at Munchin's four hands. "You still have all the fingers necessary to rub two sticks together."

"She has a point, Munchin." I said from my spot on the tree. "I can't do it either."

"Alright already, I'll do it. I was just asking, jeez." Without wasting another word, our green and grey friend got to work. After a while, he got a nice fire. Munchin and Ether sat down around it. I preferred staying on my tree. I couldn't sit normally because of those weird legs of mine, and I didn't feel like standing the entire time. The mist had become so thick now that what little there remained of the sun – she was going under already – was completely blocked out. The fire provided nice light and heat.

"I never thought a journey to a fantasy world would be like this." Ether said after a while, her voice no more than a whisper. Munchin nodded.

"Yeah, when I pictured myself in Ivalice, it sure wasn't as a mechanical insect."

"It wouldn't be _that _bad if I just had hands and could walk around normally." I added. The three of us sighed.

"I hope finding those keystones won't be too hard. I want to go home and be normal again." Munchin muttered.

"Don't count on it being a cakewalk." I sighed. "The Occuria did this for their amusement, remember? I doubt they'd make this 'game' so that it's easy and quickly over."

Ether snorted. "Those damned Occuria. I knew they were arrogant bastards, but this…"

"Like I said." Munchin told her. "Some sick kind of humour they have."

"This is almost as weird as that story in which Kel swapped you guys' genders." I remarked. Ether laughed. "True, that was weird."

"I say." Munchin agreed. "But at least we still were human in that story. But… Look at us now. I'm a damn insect! A mosquito! I hate mosquito's."

"Don't we all?" I snorted. "You're not the only one who has reason to complain, by the way. I'm sure I said it already but it annoys me so much that I'll say it again: at least you guys don't have to walk around on four legs."

"Having a scarab-shaped head isn't exactly that fun either." Ether grumbled. "Or blade-like pincers, or whatever my hands are. Really Munchin, you're lucky to have hands with fingers."

"Let's just agree that all three of us are royally screwed." Munchin concluded. Ether and I nodded. After a short silence, our mosquito-like friend asked:

"What do you think that red and silver thing from earlier was?"

"An idiot." Ether scoffed. "Really, the way he yelled, it was dumb."

"True." Munchin muttered. He seemed to be thinking about something. I yawned. I was getting tired, to be honest.

"Ah well… Whatever or whoever it was, if he's important for us, we'll bump into him again sooner or later." I nestled my weird head on the tree. "I'm gonna get some sleep. 'Night you two."

They muttered something I couldn't fully understand, so I just ignored it and closed my eyes. Maybe I would wake up realizing all this was just a bad dream, after all.

--

When I woke up again, at first I almost panicked. Where was I? What was I doing in a swamp?! Then I saw Ether the beetle and Munchin the mosquito, not to mention my own deformed bladehands, and I groaned. I remembered what had happened the day before. So it wasn't a dream, after all. We really were trapped in a sick joke of the Occuria. Groaning, I raised myself of my nice tree and scurried over to my two insect-like companions. They were soundly asleep. The fire had died out. The mist had almost fully gone away. Only here and there a small puff of it obscured a bit of the swamp from view. It was quite silent. For a moment, these haunted Deadlands almost seemed peaceful. I laughed silently. Yeah, right. The Nabreus Deadlands were all but peaceful. They were one of Ivalice's most cursed places, save perhaps the Necrohol of Nabudis, which laid in this swamp anyway. I took a deep breath and noticed I was hungry again.

I let Ether and Munchin sleep and looked for a descent meal. The thought of sucking another living thing dry with my pincers was far from appealing, but it had to be done if I wanted to keep myself alive. I was wondering if I couldn't just suck a plant dry like a leech, but some seriously fucked up part in my mind urged me to go and hunt. Great, now I was starting to behave like a hunting bug aside from looking like one! Still, I thought, why not? If I couldn't catch anything, I could still suck some vegetables dry. It's not like draining them gave me any sort of taste.

I moved quietly and slowly through shallow water. At least that's one thing I was good at with these bladelimbs of mine. There were some Focalor nearby and I briefly wondered if I should try to suck one of those dead. That is, until something slimy bumped into me. I realized with disgust it was Foobar. You know, those purple flans that accompany Cúchulainn in battle? Well, one of those was attacking me now! It's squishy body couldn't damage my metallic skin though. And as it prepared to head but me again, I repelled it. The Foobar sailed through the air and landed on dry land. Before it could slither away, I had raised my pincer and stabbed it right in its foul body. Almost immediately, it was being sucked dry by me. Luckily that 'eating' this way didn't require me to taste anything. For surely, that foobar would have tasted disgusting. As soon as nothing remained of it – no, not even dried and withered remains! That's because it's a flan and existed solely out of liquid – I returned to camp. When I arrived there, Ether and Munchin had awoken.

"Where have you been?" Munchin asked. I shrugged.

"Hunting. I was hungry."

"Did you catch anything?" He asked again.

I nodded. "Yeah, I sucked a Foobar dry."

Munchin made a sound like he was about to vomit. "Not those blood-filled flans, I hope?"

"The very same."

If it weren't for the fact that he already had that colour, Munchin would have become green. "Double yuck."

"Ah don't give me the 'yuck'." I snorted. "It's not like you taste anything when sucking a meal dry."

"Speaking of meals, I'm hungry myself." Ether piped in. Then she frowned, confused. "I only wonder how _I_ am supposed to feed."

"Try those mandibles on your head." I replied. "Seems like a logical choice."

"What about me?" Munchin asked. "How do you suppose I'm supposed to feed?"

I barely resisted the urge to roll my eyes. "Munchin, what's that thing on your snout?"

He scratched his head for a second, then slowly replied: "A stinger?"

"Brilliant observation!" I sneered. "Munchin, you look like a mosquito, so act like one. Go sting something."

"Man you're bitter." My mosquito-like friend said, rather angry.

"Damn straight I am. I still hate everything about being an insect and the thought that I constantly need to feed by sucking things dry makes me utterly sick to my stomach." I replied heatedly. Then I scurried over to my tree again and laid down. "Now go and stuff yourselves full, you two. Then we can start looking for those damn keystones."

Not wasting another word, the two flew off. They probably figured it was best to leave me be for a while. They were right.

--

After a while, don't know how long, they returned, looking rather satisfied. I guessed they had found something to feed on. However, I did not ask _how_ they had devoured whatever they had eaten. I didn't want to torture my stomach. I got up from my tree and skittered over to where my two fellow victims were, when a sudden shout broke the silence of the swamp.

"WAAAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!"

Groaning, the three of us turned in the direction of the sound simultaneously. And yeah, red and silver was back. This time, I didn't waste time talking. I wanted to know who that guy was. Repelling myself of the island, I hurried after him, Munchin and Ether following my example. My two friends were both faster flyers, Ether being the fastest. She caught up with the red and silver dude first. Calling upon her new power of Time Duplication, she summoned around ten past selves of her right in front of the speeding weirdo. He came to an abrupt halt in midair.

"End of the line, speedy." All Ethers said at once. "Now get down on the ground, we want to have a little chat with you."

"Fine Ether, whatever you say." The guy replied. He headed down to the muddy ground and stood there, waiting. Ether made her past copies disappear and wondered briefly how the guy knew her name. On the other hand, she did feel like she knew his voice… Shrugging, she flew down to meet him. Soon enough, Munchin and I joined her.

The speeding weirdo was not like us. He was far, and I really mean far, better off than us. First of all, he didn't look like an insect. Not in the slightest. He was humanoid in shape, with long, powerful looking legs and broad shoulders. His armoured body had four jet rockets mounted on it and his head was covered by same sort of red helmet that seemed fused to his face, like with us. In his right hand he carried a shield with three spinning blades on it, in his other hand some sort of blaster. Like said before, he was coloured silver and red. Though humanoid, he was still biomechanical. Still, I wouldn't have minded looking like him rather than like the insect I was.

"Do I know you?" Ether asked, confused. I noticed her pincers were… twitching? Probably a sign she was ready to attack at any moment.

"Common Ether, I'd recognize your voice anywhere. Even though you're a beetle now, you still don't fool me." The dude said. Munchin's eyes narrowed.

"Wait a second…" He muttered, stepping closer to the red and silver guy. "Kel?"

"The one and only!" Kel replied, grinning all the while. "Hi Munchin." He looked over to me. "And who's that over there?"

"Great. Guess I'm still too much of a 'new guy' to have him recognize me on voice alone." I muttered quietly, hoping he wouldn't hear. Lucky for me, he was way too excited, so he didn't.

"That's Icarax, Kel." Ether explained, giving me a quick glance. Was it me, or did she try to tell me to stay calm? She turned back to Kel. "Anyway, so you too, I see."

"Yeah." He said, still grinning. "I'm here as well, like you can see. Ain't it awesome? I have four jet rockets, blade-shield and an uber cool blaster." He took us in from head to toe. "Though, I have to say, I thought you guys had better taste than insects."

"Blame the Occuria." I snorted, scurrying closer on my four limbs. "This is their idea of 'fun' and 'amusing'."

"So I heard." Kel shrugged. "I did have a little chat with Gerun. Nice fellow. Said he was the one to gimme all these cool upgrades. Also informed me of something called 'keystones'. Said I'd need those if we all wanted to go home."

"He told us the same." Munchin said. His face brightened. "But hey, now that there are four of us, we'll find these keystones even faster! We'll be home in no time!"

Kel did a step back. "Go home?" He repeated slowly. He was no longer grinning. "Now why would you want that? We've got all these cool powers and equipment here!"

"Correction." Ether interrupted him. "You do. We don't. I don't know if you noticed, but we've been made insects by Gerun. And personally, I'm not fond of feeding by holding things between my mandibles and watch right in front of my eyes how I suck things dry. So yeah, we want to go home fast, and we'll need the keystones to do so."

"But I don't want to go home." Kel retorted. "Not yet at least. I want to live like this for a while. You guys will just have to wait finding those keystones until I'm done with this life. Gerun told me that if one goes home, all of us will go home. So yeah, just wait a bit."

I hissed in irritation, approaching Kel slowly. "Not a chance Kel. I'm sick of walking around on four limbs and sucking things dry like a leech. I'm not going to keep living like this just because a great fanfic writer wants to zoom over a swamp laughing like an idiot."

Kel sighed. "Too bad. I don't want to go back yet. I'm finally in Ivalice _for real_ and I'm not gonna let two friends of mine and a fan force me to go back home."

"So you're against us?!" Ether shouted, dumbfounded.

"You left me no choice." Kel shrugged, even as he raised his blaster and pointed it at her. "I see you carry a keystone with you, Ether. Give it."

--

**Ouch! Turns out Kel is our enemy in this weird little adventure… Ha, bet you didn't expect that! :p Now the game really gets started. Kel and Friends vs. Icarax and Friends. Who will collect the keystones first? **

**Here's an image of Kel (and yes Daughter of Ether, he has been LEGO-fied as well :p )**

**www majhost com/gallery/Elpizo/SpiritsOfTheMist/kel png**

**Again, just put a dot . where the spaces are.**

--

**Next chapter: showdown in the swamp! Kel clashes with us for the first time as we battle for possession of Ether's keystone!**

**PS: Actually Daughter of Ether, I didn't get Kel's permission to use him in this. I sent him a PM, sure, but he didn't answer. / He never seems to answer me these days. Oh well. He had his chance to say "No, I don't wanna be in this!" :p**


	5. Kel's mistake

**5.**** Kel's Mistake**

Munchin and I nervously watched both Kel and Ether. Nether of them was moving. Ether's eyes narrowed as her gaze drifted from Kel to his blaster, aimed at her.

"You are… making a big mistake." She finally said, her voice void of any emotions. And that was perhaps even more frightening than if her voice would have been full of the anger she was obviously feeling.

"Nah, don't think so." Kel said with a shrug. "I'd be making a mistake if I didn't do this. Now hand over the stone Ether. Don't make me fire at you."

There was a tensed silence and then Ether spoke the fatal words: "Come and get it."

And then only the weapons spoke. Kel ealized he'd have to take the stone by force so he fired a searing energy blast from his blaster. Ether jumped out of the way and raised her bladed hands. Kel was upon her in a second, reaching for the stone she had attached to her right shoulder. Ether swung her right pincer at him, but Kel blocked it with his shield. He aimed his blaster again, but she gave him a kick with her feet that blew him away. Ether spread her wings and sped towards him, her eyes blazing with anger.

"I'm going to beat you to crap for even having the idea of letting us… me walk around like this just so you can be a stuck-up, robotic idiot!" She hissed.

One swing of her mighty blades and Kel landed in the mud. Dazed, he attempted to get up but Ether wasn't going to let him get away so easily. She flew towards him again, but this time he was ready. Quickly Kel fired another shot at her which she could barely avoid. But it gave him enough time to start his jet rockets again and be airborne once more. He followed that up with a barrage of shots. To Ether's credit, she was quick and agile, but even she couldn't dodge around twenty shots of Kel's blaster. One of them struck her and exploded, unleashing a painful blow and searing heat that burned her despite her now armoured skin. Groaning in pain, Ether was forced to land. This left her unprepared for Kel racing over towards her and smashing into her with his shield first. Ether was slammed back by the force of the collision and landed painfully on her back in the mud. Kel stood over her, victorious and reached down for the keystone.

He would have grabbed it, if it weren't for Munchin grabbing him with all four of his hands. Our mosquito-like friend shot up in the sky on his wings and once high enough, threw Kel towards the ground. Kel fired up his jet rockets again and could prevent himself from colliding with the ground. But he had barely regained his balance in the air, or Munchin slammed down on him from above with his feet, slamming Kel towards the ground once again. Once again, Kel landed in the mud. Smirking, I loomed over him.

"You know what your problem is, Kel?" I said quietly. "You believe this is your game. You think you're an almighty Overlord here like in your stories. But you aren't. You are simply another pawn of the Occuria in their little amusement game."

"Keep talking…" Kel grumbled as he got on his feet and raised his blaster to point it at me. "This is not you guys' game either."

"You're right…" I replied. Then, I made the ground under his feet repel him and he was knocked in the air. Next he knew, I slammed into him and gave him a good punch – well, as good as a punch I could give, anyway. It's hard punching people with blades instead of fists – mixed with some of my repelling power. Kel sailed a few more metres through the air, before landing in a deeper part of the swamp and sinking out of sight. Satisfied he was gone out of sight, I returned to the others.

Munchin was helping Ether to her feet by the time I rejoined them. All of us three had furious and disappointed looks in our eyes.

"Damn that Kel… I should have known he would've wanted to stay in Ivalice…" Ether cursed. Behind us, Kel suddenly emerged from the swamp waters. He glared at us.

"This isn't over." He snarled. "We'll get those keystones before you guys do and then you'll just have to wait until we're satisfied being here."

And with that said, he flew off quickly. There was no point in pursuing him.

"Asshole." I cursed, slamming one of my hands hard in the ground to get rid of some of my frustration.

"I say." Ether agreed. She still looked beyond furious. Munchin however, had a thoughtful frown on his face and seemed to be thinking about something.

"Hey Munchin, what are you thinking about?" I asked carefully.

"About something Kel just said." He replied. "He said 'we', didn't he?"

I nodded slowly, then my eyes widened in realization. "Of course… Now I get it." I glanced at Ether and Munchin, who seemed a bit confused. "If this is all a game for the Occuria… what better way to lengthen our suffering and their amusement than by creating another team that will be looking for the keystones, but just so they can prevent us from going home?"

"Makes sense." Munchin agreed.

"If you are right Icarax… Then I wonder who Kel's team mates are going to be." Ether muttered. I shrugged.

"No way to know unless we run into them, I fear." I gazed over the swamp of the Nabreus Deadlands. Matters had just been complicated a lot. Now our search for the keystones would actually be a race. We had to get those damned stones before Kel and his team did, or else it would be very hard to pry them from their hands.

"Let's not waste time standing around here." I suddenly said. "Kel and his team are out there looking for the keystones. We have to find them first. So let's start looking."

--

I was quietly stalking through the waters of the swamp. The murky waters reached up to my waist and there were already weeds and plants sticking to my pincers and body. I didn't mind that, though. I could fly, of course, but now that we were dealing with intelligent – wait, let me rephrase that, sentient would be a better word – opponents I decided to go for stealth. And that was, like I said a number of times before, the one thing this cursed body was good for: stealth. My bladelimbs made little sound when placed upon the ground and under water nothing could be heard at all. I moved slowly, as to not make any splashing sounds. I had to glide through the water, slowly, steadily and quietly. And so far, I was doing fine. And one point I had even walked completely submerged over the bottom of the swamp. I had discovered that when under water, I could repel the water around me enough to create a bubble of air around me, allowing me to breath. And thanks to the murkiness of the water, I was as good as invisible once fully submerged.

Ether, Munchin and I had decided to split up to cover more ground that way. Somehow, I was sure Kel and his team had done the same. As for me, I was quietly stalking through the swamp in the direction Kel had flew off to this morning. I avoided the Necrohol of Nabudis and instead went to deeper waters. The swamp now reached up to my neck, but still I went on as quietly, quickly and stealthy as before. I glanced to my right, a thick mist was drifting in my way across the swamp. I thought for a while, then headed towards the mist. Water is fine and dandy and all, but it's still wet and cold. Not to mention all those weeds and vegetation sticking to my body now. I climbed on dry land and, covered by the mist, continued on my way by land. Now and then a monster crossed my path, but to my surprise, I rarely had to defend myself. Most of them fled when they laid their gaze on me. Great, just what I needed, monsters fleeing because of my ugliness.

"Damn you Kel…" I muttered heatedly. "How can you condemn me, Ether and Munchin to a life like this?!"

The sound of hooves made me come back out of my thoughts. Apparently I had disturbed a Leynir. You know, those horse-like things with their weird metal helmets? As said before, most monsters fled when they saw me. But it seemed this one was so pissed that it brushed aside my appearance and charged at me. I snorted.

"Ah, fuck off you dumb thing…" I hissed. I then made the air around the Leynir repel the beast. And I mean all air around it. The animal's lungs were crushed by the sudden pressure on them. It sank to the ground, dead. With one swing of my right bladehand, I knocked it aside, out of my way and into the shallow water. Predators would take care of it. I didn't have time to feed now, nor did I feel the desire. I was still energized enough by the Foobar of this morning.

A sudden chill made me realize that a wind was coming up. The mist was fading, ripped to shreds by the wind. Wishing to stay under cover, I entered the murky waters again. I was becoming used to the constant weather changing in these Deadlands. A movement in the corner of my eyes caught my attention. I quickly lowered myself into the waters, slowly crawling deeper until only the top of my head and my eyes were above the water. A figure clad in black and silver armour zoomed overhead, totally unaware of the fact that I was observing him. I noticed the figure was flying in a south-east direction. A sly smile crept up my face. This was obviously one of Kel's team mates… As I watched him become a little dot in the distance, I wondered briefly how Ether would kick the crap out of him (or her), since the figure was flying in the direction Ether had headed off to as well. And it just wouldn't be her to _not_ notice the figure and knock some sense into him. Smiling at the pleasant thought, I walked further into the waters, fully submerging myself. And as I repelled the waters around me, I moved further on across the bottom of the swamp in the direction Kel had gone to.

--

**We kicked Kel's behind but he's pretty determined to have his way regardless of what we are going through. Now both teams have split up and search for the keystones. Will we be successful in our search? And what will happen once we encounter somebody from Kel's team? Again, that's for me to know and for you to find out. :p**

**In the next chapter, I'll probably introduce the two other members of Kel's team.**


	6. Showdown in the Swamp

**6. Showdown in the Swamp**

Zooming over the waters of the Nabreus Deadlands was a red and silver figure better known as Kel. Originally a normal human fanfic writer, the Occuria got bored one day and dropped him right in Ivalice. There he was changed into a biomechanical robot–thing with a spinning shield and blaster cannon. His purpose was to oppose a team of three individuals who had been changed by the Occuria in insect-like biomechanical monstrosities. They wanted to go home and be normal again and they would achieve that they had to find six keystones. Kel was here to make sure that didn't happen. And so he and his two team mates were searching the swamp of the Nabreus Deadlands in the hopes of finding the keystones before the other team did.

"That's a lot of swamp to cover." Kel said to himself as he glanced at the waters zooming under him. "Good thing Gale, Blaze and I split up, it increases our chances of finding the keystones."

Kel rocketed further, enjoying the fact that he was flying through the air because of four jet rockets on his torso. It was a sad thing – for him of course – that he was enjoying it so much. It made him pay less attention to his surroundings. And because of that, he didn't see the white, skeletal monstrosity that was stalking behind him in the murky waters of the swamp. And that skeletal figure would be me, Icarax the monstrous insect-like one walking around on four legs.

"The fool seems to be more focussed on flying than finding…" I scoffed. "Ah, all the better for me and my friends, gives us more chance to find the keystones."

Suddenly I halted and let my self submerge a bit deeper in the water until only my eyes and the top of my head were above the surface. Kel had halted in midair and was doing something. I didn't know what because he was a bit too far away from me. After a while, he changed his direction from going north to going north-east. Had he spotted something? A keystone perhaps? Cautiously, I followed him.

The waters were getting less deep and more shallow, which meant less cover. But I didn't have to worry. The area Kel and me had arrived in was covered with thick bushes and low trees. Ideal cover for me. The weeds and plants sticking to my metallic body because of my swimming in the swamp, would give me even more cover. I watched Kel fly slower and then I noticed why.

He was observing a large pillar made out of crystal that rose straight out of the water. It kinda looked like an Egyptian obelisk. My eyes narrowed. This had never been here in the game, so there was a big chance there was a keystone here. I scurried closer to Kel and the strange structure. Kel meanwhile, was slowly approaching the obelisk and I had come close enough to hear what he said.

"There's a keystone in this thing alright." Kel said. "But I find it suspicious that there are no guards… Why would that be?" He reached out to something close to the obelisk's top. That was probably where the keystone was. But as soon as his fingers made contact with the surface of the crystal spire, Kel was throw back by an invisible force field. He sailed through the air and landed with a splash in the mud. As he shook his dazed head, my skeletal, insect-like form loomed over him.

"And what have we here?" I said with a smile. "Brave and daring Kel fallen at the feet of Icarax?" I glanced over my shoulder at the obelisk. "I guess I should thank you for kindly showing me that the keystone is protected by a force field. Couldn't have me finding out the hard way, now could we?"

Kel sprung to his feet, blaster and shield ready. "Icarax, seriously, you talk too much."

I sighed and shook my head. "Very well then, I shall act."

Within the blink of an eye I had activated my repulsion power. The ground Kel was standing on suddenly repelled him and he was knocked in the air. Before he could gain his balance in the air, I lashed out with one of my bladed hands and slammed him like a baseball towards the obelisk. The force field threw Kel back again, but I increased my repulsion and made the air repel Kel. He was knocked against the force field again, which knocked him back. Kel was now trapped in a contest between me and the force field. I could feel the strain on my mind as I tried to keep my repulsion up. With a low hiss I threw all my mental strength at my repulsion powers and that proved to be enough. Kel was repelled by me straight through the force field. It shattered and Kel slammed into the obelisk, which broke in half because of the force he collided with. My dear opponent and the obelisk both landed flat on the ground. As Kel laid there counting stars, my pincer pried the Keystone from the obelisk.

As I was about to leave, I looked at Kel, who was still groggy, one last time and sighed. "You should have let me talk."

Then I activated my repulsion again and flew away. One point for my team!

--

In another part of the swamp, a blue and silver armoured figure was having problems of his own. This individual, known as Gale, was armed with a blaster similar to Kel's, only his had laser sight mounted on it for extra accuracy. Gale was well-armoured, especially his shoulders carried wicked armour. He had decided to search for keystones in a rather tree-covered part of the swamp. And Gale was lucky, for he had found a keystone indeed. That, however, was all of the good news. The bad news was that the trees themselves held the keystone trapped in their roots and when Gale came a bit too close, they would lash out with their branches.

"Wonderful!" Gale thought sarcastically. "Living trees that like to kick some butt." He raised his blaster and aimed at the most nearby tree. "But let's see how they like the power of my weapon."

Gale fired a blast of energy at the tree. The blast blew a whole chunk out of the overgrown vegetable, which uttered wild screeches upon being wounded. The tree began to lash out mindlessly with his branches in an attempt to hit Gale. Gale however, simply powered up the jet rockets he had on each feet and flew out of the way. He took aim again and fired, this time at the bunch of roots that held the keystone trapped. The blast ripped the roots apart, but almost immediately more roots erupted from the ground that quickly wrapped themselves around each other and the keystone.

"I could really use Kel's heat blaster here…" Gale muttered, taking aim once again. "But I guess we'll have to do it with what we have." Gale proceeded to fire at all the trees in sight, blasting huge holes in their trunks, blowing branches and leaves off, ripping roots apart. Soon the place was filled with a mass of screeching, wildly moving trees. Gale fired one final shot at the roots holding the keystone. The next moment more pieces of vegetables soared through the air and the keystone was free. The wounded trees attempted to grab the keystone again, but Gale powered his jet rockets and soared towards the keystone. He grabbed it and then had to flee for his life. Roots and branches all lashed out at him and Gale had to use all his agility and speed to fly between the quivering mass of plants. It was exhilarating, not to mention fun. But dangerous as well.

"Kel would have loved this." Gale smiled as he ducked under another branch and then shot into open air. He had escaped the vicious plants and had gotten his hands on a keystone! Still smiling, Gale prepared to return to camp. The next moment however, he found himself laying facedown in the mud with a very angry green, biomechanical, mosquito-like individual with four arms looming above him.

"I'll take that keystone." Munchin said, reaching down towards the stone still in Gale's grasp. He had been flying around the swamp when the screams of the trees had drawn his attention. Then he had seen Gale's struggles with the trees and his escape with a keystone. That was all Munchin needed to know to attack. And a swift attack from above had proven to be effective.

However, before Munchin could grab the keystone, Gale gave him a kick in the legs. Munchin stumbled for one crucial second, but it was enough for Gale to get to his feet and fire at Munchin.

"Hello Munchin." Gale greeted cheerfully. His attack hit his mosquito-like opponent in the chest and Munchin was blown back by its force. The four-armed guy crashed against a boulder, but quickly rose to his feet again, grumbling all the way.

"Nice seeing you too, Gale." Munchin retorted. He tore the boulder he had crashed against out of the mud and with a mighty swing of his four arms, threw it towards Gale. Gale dodged just in time and then fired a few shots rapidly at Munchin again. But this time Munchin was ready. Agile the mosquito-like boy dodged the assault, getting close enough to Gale to swipe at Gale with one of his clawed hands. The blue-armoured member of Kel's team raised his blaster to block the blow, – for he lacked any other weapon, which was quite a hindrance when in close combat with a being like Munchin, who was fully equipped for close-combat – he succeeded, but Munchin still had three other hands. The next swipe Gale could not block and Munchin's claws managed to rip through some of Gale's armour and damage the soft organic tissue underneath. Gale cried out in pain and attempted to give Munchin a good punch in the face. His attempts failed and Munchin managed to grab Gale with two of his hands. Another hand tore the blaster from Gale's hands, which Munchin carelessly tossed away over his shoulder. His fourth hand, finally, punched Gale square in the face.

Gale still didn't give up, however, and he managed to knee Munchin in the ribs – if Munchin still had ribs at that moment, that is. Munchin's armour protected him, but the attack was enough to make him let go of Gale. Gale immediately punched Munchin on the cheek with the hand that wasn't holding the keystone. To finish it off, he kicked Munchin as hard as possible. The mosquito was knock backwards through the air, but quickly regained himself. And now Munchin was pissed off as well… He stormed towards Gale, who prepared himself to catch Munchin. Munchin lashed out with two hands, but Gale managed to grab them and stop the attack. Munchin used his other two hands, however, to grab Gale by the shoulders and rip through the armour with his claws. Gale let go of Munchin in pain. My mosquito-like friend seized the opportunity and flew over Gale, then grabbed him from behind, holding him strongly in his grasp with his six limbs. Gale struggled to get out of Munchin's grasp, but to no avail.

"Stop resisting, Gale. This fight is mine." Munchin hissed. And then he plunged his stinger in Gale's back. Gale screamed in pain as Munchin drained his life force. "Oh don't worry." Munchin said calmly. "I'm not going to kill you, just going to make sure you won't get in my way again for a while."

Gale weakened quickly and soon enough, the keystone slid from his grasp. Munchin retreated his stinger out of the now limp Gale and released Kel's team mate from his grasp. Munchin now held Gale with one hand in the air.

"Those who condemn their friends to cursed lives deserve pain." Munchin said before tossing Gale away carelessly. "Remember that on your way down."

And as Gale landed with a splash in the shallow waters of the swamp, Munchin flew down towards the swampfloor and picked up the keystone.

--

In yet another part of the Nabreus Deadlands, a black and silver armoured figure had also encountered trouble. His name was Blaze and like Kel and Gale, he carried an energy blaster as weapon. Though his had been modified to allow him to hold it better and also give more power to it. A shining silver shield was mounted on his left shoulder and a jet rocket on each leg held him in the air. What trouble had he found? Well, he was scouting the swamp looking for Keystones and he had the luck to even find one when he suddenly found himself surrounded by beetle-like, biomechanical figures.

"Wonderful." Blaze sighed. "Here I was worrying about encountering one angry Ether and I run into seven of them."

All seven Ethers smirked, their cold red eyes fixed on Blaze, their pincers ready to attack. The real Ether, or rather, the Ether from the present, could hardly contain her happiness.

"You have no idea how pleased I am by running into you Blaze." She told him. "I was looking for someone to take my frustration out on and then you so conveniently drop by. Shame it isn't Kel, but you'll do all the same." Her gaze drifted to the Keystone Blaze had stored under his shield. "And the fact that you have such a nice keystone makes this an even better encounter for me. Munchin and Icarax will be very pleased indeed!"

Blaze looked around, trying to see if there was a way out of his nasty situation. If he attempted to make a run for it, Ether would be upon him in no time, she was a faster flyer than him. His blaster was useless, even if he fired it and hit one Ether, there were still six others to deal with. He had to be very careful to get out of this one… Blaze noticed one Ether hovering particularly close to him and got an idea.

He made a move as if he would try and flee, but then suddenly whirled around and grabbed the most nearby Ether. Blaze's arm was locked around that Ether's head and he pointed his blaster against Ether's head as well.

"Tell your friends to back off Ether," Blaze said on a dangerous tone. "If they like your head attached to your shoulders."

The Ether in Blaze's grasp grinned. "Oh we like it attached very much Blaze, but can you shoot before we strike you down?"

She suddenly lashed out with her right pincer and attempted to stab him in the back. Blaze could stop the attack in time, but had to let go of Ether's head. She seized the opportunity and grabbed him, then tossed him against a nearby tree. The tree fell over when Blaze collided with it. While Blaze groaningly got up, the army of Ethers flew down and surrounded him again.

"You don't really understand, do you, Blaze?" Ether said with a sigh. "These aren't copies of me, they _are_ me. When the Occuria dropped me here in this twisted and vile body, they gave me the ability to summon past versions of myself." My beetle-like friend smiled. "Isn't that handy? An instant army, all of them completely loyal. And as many as I need, for as long as I need." As if on a signal, all Ethers raised their pincers, ready to attack. "The perfect power when fighting for keystones." Ether continued, getting a rather creepy look in her eyes. "And now it is time to relieve you of the keystone you hold."

The next moment, all Ethers charged at Blaze at the same time at great speed. There was no time for Blaze to do a counter attack or to try and flee. As he watched the very angry Ethers approach him, only one thought appeared in his mind:

"Oh... shit…"

--

**Yes, Munchin, Ether and I were quite violent in this chapter, weren't we? Munchin and Ether especially. Poor Blaze and Gale. Serves them right though, that'll teach them condemning their friends to walk around as freakish insects. So at the end of this chapter, my team has 4 keystones and Kel's team has zero. Going to fast? Perhaps, but just you wait, the last two keystones will be the hardest to get. **

**And yeah, it took a while until this chapter was done. Seriously, it was hard to write. I restarted from scratch three times after having written 3 pages each time just because I thought what I had written sucked. Damn. But now this version is to my liking and so this chapter is posted. :)**

**And here are the last two members of Kel's team. Yes, they have been LEGO-fied as well, Ether! :)**

**Gale:**

**www majhost com/gallery/Elpizo/SpiritsOfTheMist/gale png**

**Blaze:**

**www majhost com/gallery/Elpizo/SpiritsOfTheMist/blaze png**


	7. Ambush

**7. Ambush**

I placed all four keystones we had gathered today together on the ground, then took a step backwards to admire our progress. "Three in one day, can't say I'm complaining about our progress."

"Not to mention Ether got to take some of her frustration out, so that's good too." Munchin chirped in. Ether glared at him, but our mosquito-like friend just smiled.

"Well I am not sure I like it." Ether snapped, turning her attention to me. "It is going a bit too well in my opinion. At this rate, we'll be home tomorrow. I thought the Occuria wanted to have fun watching us struggle?"

"You do have a point." I agreed. "Something smells."

"You, perhaps?" Munchin joked. "Seriously, Ic-y my friend, you swim too much in that dirty swamp water."

I made a hissing sound and used a fraction of my repulsion power to make Munchin fall over. "I'm not swimming, I'm stalking, for swimming is impossible in this shape! Besides, the water gives me excellent cover."

Unfazed, Munchin got back to his feet. "So does the mist. Gale didn't see or hear me until too late. So I don't see why you have to swim so much, but if you like it, fine. I was just joking, anyway."

"I know, I know." I said lazily. "I guess I'm just a bit on the edge since I became an insect."

"Aren't we all?" Ether said, shrugging. "Anyway, it's getting late. Let's get some sleep so we're ready for round two tomorrow."

"Sounds good." Munchin agreed, stretching his four arms as he yawned. "What do we do with the keystones?"

"I'll hide them." I promised. I snatched two up with my bladelike hands and scurried over to my fallen tree, my own personal bed. With the blink of an eye I made the ground repel my tree, as well as the air above my tree, causing it to hover still in midair. I dug a small pit and put the keystones in it. Munchin came to lend a hand and put the other two we had collected in. When that was done, I turned of my repulsion power slowly, landing my tree gently back on the ground. I laid on it and prepared for the night.

"G'night, you two." I mumbled. My two companions said something in return, but I didn't understand them as I was already drifting off to sleep.

--

I had a nice dream that night. I dreamt I was normal again, as were Ether and Munchin and we got revenge by changing the Occuria into insects and then squashing them. It was a pleasant dream and ended all too soon. An annoying voice shouted at me from outside the world of dreams. I tried to ignore it, for the dream was so pleasant, but the voice was determined to wake me up.

--

"Icarax, I swear, if you don't wake up this instant, I'm going to give you a kick you'll never forget!" Ether shouted threateningly. But even that did not wake me up. The beetle-like girl cursed and then gave me a kick so powerful I flew off my tree, in the air, only to land in the swamp with a splash. I was awake right away and glared at my attacker.

"Hey! What was that for?!"

Ether snapped the mandibles on her face together irritably. "You wouldn't wake up the nice way, Ic-y, so I had to do it the rough way."

I glared at her again, then narrowed my eyes. Ether recognized the look in my eyes and tried to back away, but she was too slow. I activated my repulsion power and made the ground repel her with such force she landed in the swamp herself. I heard her curse as I got to my feet.

"That'll teach you to throw me in the swamp." I muttered.

"I thought you liked the water!" She shot back.

"Yeah, when I choose to go in it, not when I am thrown in it." I replied. "Anyway, where's Munchin?"

"Hunting, he was hungry." Ether replied on a normal tone. Her anger disappeared like snow under the sun when the subject was changed.

"Again? He sucked Gale dry yesterday." I remarked.

Ether shrugged and crawled out of the water. "I guess Gale just wasn't that filling."

I yawned, still feeling a bit sleepy. "Oh well, let him, he needs to be at full strength for today. Kel and co are gonna be back for round two."

"We beat them all once, we can do it again." My female companion assured me. "We'll kick their sorry behinds so hard they won't be able to sit on it for a month. And after that we'll find the remaining two keystones and go home."

"You make it sound easy." I sighed. "However, I doubt Kel and the others will just let us waltz over them again like yesterday. They'll probably be more on their guard now."

"I think you're worrying too much." Ether assured me. "This is Kel we're talking about, the guy who rushes of in a fight with little thinking and who zooms around over the swamp yelling like an idiot."

I thought about that for a moment. "Can't argue with you there." I admitted finally. Ether smiled triumphantly. We fell silent for a while, until I looked around a bit impatiently.

"I wonder what's taking Munchin so long…"

--

As it turned out, Munchin was actually on his way back at the same time I was wondering what was taking him so long. He glided through the mist on his mosquito wings, having satisfied his hunger after draining the life-force of a monster from the swamp.

"I should hurry." He said to himself. "I've been gone for quite a while and by now Ether probably has succeeded in waking Icarax up."

A blast of energy shot out of the mist suddenly. Luckily Munchin saw it on time and managed to fly out of the way, but more attacks came out of the mist at a rapid pace.

"Great, Kel's up as well I see. And I just had breakfast, couldn't he have waited a bit?" Munchin muttered as he made a dive straight for the waters below him. But another assault of energy blasts from another direction forced Munchin to quickly change plans.

"Hell, there's two of them!" My mosquito-like friend cursed. He tried to locate his attackers, but the mist obscured his sight. Energy blasts flew at him from both sides at once and he had no choice but to move. As he flew through the mist, evading blasts as he went, Munchin did his best to orientate himself. "I mustn't lead them to the camp. Though I'm sure we could beat all of them when united, it's not worth the risk of loosing the keystones."

A third series of blasts coming from right ahead of him interrupted his thoughts. As Munchin swayed to the right, he couldn't help but shout: "Woah, you've gotta be kidding me! All three against me?!"

A familiar silver and red figure appeared suddenly from Munchin's right and hit him with the spinning blades on his shield. The blades ripped through Munchin's metallic armour and even managed to damage the organic tissue that lay underneath it. The unfortunate mosquito screamed in pain, yet managed to strike Kel with all four of his arms, knocking the leader of the opposite team out of the sky and into the mud.

"Good morning to you, too, Kel." Munchin hissed. He tried to rush towards Kel and slam into his guts, when he was hit from behind by two shots at once. Blaze and Gale appeared out of the mist, blasters aimed at Munchin who tried to regain his balance in the air. While Munchin was distracted, Kel got to his feet and took to the skies once again, surrounding Munchin together with his friends.

"Good morning, Munchin." Kel greeted cheerfully. "Thanks for the blow, the places you hit were itching and needed some scratching." The red and silver humanoid figure aimed his grey and black blaster at his old friend. "Now, where are Ether and Icarax? And more importantly, where are the keystones?"

Despite the bad situation he was in, Munchin managed to grin. Apparently, Kel and his friends had no idea where their camp was. "They're at our camp." The mosquito said smugly. "In Icarax and Ether's claws. You'll have a tough time convincing them to let the keystones go."

Kel returned Munchin's grin with one of his own. "Oh no we won't, because you're going to do that for us."

Munchin crossed his two pairs of arms. "And why would I do that?"

"Because we'll kick your ass otherwise." Gale shot back. "I still owe you some pain for yesterday."

"Be glad I didn't kill you." Munchin snapped. "Given the circumstances, I was really tempted to, but thought better of it. You ought to be more grateful for my mercy, Gale."

Gale's expression darkened and it looked as if he wanted to shoot Munchin out of the sky right there and then, but Blaze stopped him before he even tried to do so.

"Calm yourself, if we damage him too much Ether will never let us get away with it."

"Not to mention Icarax will repel you from here to Archades." Munchin chimed in with an innocent smile.

"I'm not that worried about that fan, we can handle him with little trouble." Kel replied, sure of himself. Munchin raised an eyebrow at that, or he would have done that if he had had eyebrows.

"As I recall, he kicked your sorry behind yesterday, Kel. Besides, he may not be a guild member, but he's still as hard as me or Ether, and quite scary when he's mad."

"He got lucky. Bored me to tears first with all his talking and then caught me off guard." Kel said quickly, shrugging Munchin's words off. "In a fair fight, I'd beat him within seconds."

"Kel, you're being tricked." Blaze said with a sigh, glaring at Munchin. "You were hoping to keep us talking long enough until help arrived, weren't you, Munchin?"

"Not at all," Munchin said with fake innocence. "I talk with my enemies in the air every day. It's a nice way to pass time. Try it sometime."

"Enough!" Gale snarled, still mad at Munchin for what he did to him yesterday. "You're going to show us the way to your camp right now and tell your friends to hand over the keystones."

"Or else?"

His three captors smirked evilly, but Munchin wasn't really impressed. In his mind, nothing they could do to him was worse than being the way he was now, or loosing the keystones. He shivered at the thought of what Ether would do to him if he handed over he keystones.

"Or else you'll be the one looking like scrap." Blaze said calmly. "I still owe Ether one for that."

Munchin laughed in himself. So Blaze got beaten quite badly by Ether, eh? She had told him that she had encountered Blaze and 'persuaded' him to give her his keystone, sure, but she had never told him how. Oh, he had guessed, but it was still nice to have his suspicions confirmed by blaze himself.

"So what's it gonna be, Munchin?" Kel demanded, getting impatient.

Munchin's thoughts were racing as he considered his options. He could take them to camp and join up with his comrades and fight Kel and co off, but that way they risked loosing the keystones during the battle. He could lead them in the opposite direction and try to escape, but it wouldn't be so easy because they were united, three against one. Or he could take them to camp the long way and try to make enough of a ruckus or escape attempts to warn Ether and Icarax that they had company and that he was in trouble. Yeah, that sounded like the best option.

"Fine." Munchin said, acting as if he gave in. "I'll take you to our camp. Just follow me."

"No tricks, I warn you!" Gale said threateningly as he glanced meaningfully at his blaster. "I won't hold back after what you did to me yesterday."

Munchin shrugged. "Suit yourself."

Then he flew off, above the mist so he could see where he was. His old friends never left his side and kept a watchful eye on him all the time, weapons at ready. As they flew over the swamp, Munchin looked around frantically, trying to find a way to alert Icarax and Ether. He wished he had a special power now besides his massive strength. At least Ether could summon an army of herself, and Icarax was a tricky opponent on his own thanks to his repulsion powers. The mosquito-like boy also did his best to take the longest way possible towards camp. He noticed a small forest of trees and large swamp plants below. That gave him an idea. Looking around some more, he also noticed they weren't very far away from camp anymore. If he was going to act, now was the time to do so.

Without warning, Munchin quit flying and let himself drop towards the ground. He fell like a stone, the swampfloor approaching rapidly. His three captors had been too slow to stop him. By the time they flew down in pursuit, Munchin had already started flying again and had reached the edge of the small forest. Energy blasts flew over his head and exploded when they hit something.

"Perfect." Munchin thought. "Camp's close by and you're making all the noise I want you to. If Icarax and Ether don't notice this ruckus, they're deaf."

To add some extra noise, Munchin ripped a full-grown tree out of the ground and threw it at high speed towards his approaching opponents. All three of them fired at the projectile at the same time, blowing it into a million pieces when their shots exploded.

"Common, fire some more, I want you to do it!" Munchin shouted, sounding more than a little excited. He ripped two more trees out and soared high into the air. He threw his projectiles at the oncoming Team Kel. They evaded the first one, but made the second one explode. The tree exploded in midair, high above the swamp. The light and smoke the explosion created could be seen from everywhere in the swamp.

"They must have seen _that_…" Munchin muttered. "But just in case they didn't…" He let himself drop towards the ground again. Shots were fired at him, but none hit. Munchin only spread his wings once more when he was surrounded by the trees of the forest again. Team Kel was closing in quickly now, shooting like mad. Munchin tried to keep them at bay by throwing some more trees and even a huge boulder or two, but he only managed to slow their approach.

"Damn!" He cursed as he had to jump out of the way for a particularly large energy blast fired by Gale. The blast hit a boulder instead, which exploded and sent pieces of rubble flying in all direction at high speed. A few hit Munchin, who shielded himself with his arms. The shards of stone made dents in his armour, crushing the organic tissue underneath his armour. "Not good…!"

Another blast hit him and the mosquito-like boy was blown on his back in the mud. Munchin tried to get up, but another shot that hit him knocked him flat once more.

"Foolish, Munchin." He heard Kel say. "Do you really want us to hurt you?"

Munchin managed to raise his head and glare at Kel. "Did you really think I would be so stupid as to lead you to my friends and the keystones?"

"You were stupid enough to think you could escape from us." Blaze commented. "All you did was prolong this fight. We'll get the keystones sooner or later."

"Are you sure of that?" A female voice asked, amusement in her voice. Before Blaze could react, he was surrounded by ten Ethers, all of them looking at Blaze with murder in their eyes. Kel and Gale moved in to attack, but the air around them suddenly repelled them and sent them slamming into each other. The two spiralled out of control towards the swampfloor. I soared through the air towards the battlefield, glad I had made it. I landed right besides Munchin and helped him to his feet.

"You okay?" I asked.

"About time you two showed up!" Munchin replied, annoyed.

"Apologies, my friend. We'll make it up to you later." I looked at the sky, where the ten Ethers attacked Blaze. The black and silver figure fought back, however, and one of his blasts hit the real Ether, breaking her concentration and making her past selves disappear. Blaze fired another shot, but a fraction of my repulsion power send the blast right back at him. He was hit, but the shot did little more than daze him thanks to his thick armour. Kel and Gale by now had recovered and flew up to rejoin the fight.

I looked at Munchin. "Care for a rematch with those losers?"

He nodded eagerly. "My claws are itching already."

I repelled myself off the ground and flew towards Ether together with Munchin. The two of us joined her at her side. The three of us now stood face to face with our three opponents.

"Alright." I said towards my companions. "Let's do what we're good in and take them down!"

--

**Next chapter: an all out battle between the two teams in the swamp and skies of the Nabreus deadlands! Nobody will hold back in this fight…**

**And yeah, it took forever for an update. Deal with it, I've got nothing to say. =p **

**I'll see you all when I'll see you.**


	8. Endgame

**8. Endgame**

Ever since nethicite had laid waste to the land of Nabudis, the enormous, misty swamp had been spared of any more wars or battles. At least, until now. Ether, Munchin and myself went all out against Team Kel that day, in what seemed the ultimate battle for supremacy and possession over the Keystones, our ticket home.

Ether had summoned over fifty past selves of herself, not caring that such a huge number was incredibly taxing on her mind and would no doubt leave her with an equally big headache soon after the battle. The swarm of Ethers ganged up on our three opponents, but despite the advantage of numbers, Kel and his friends were holding up quite well. They could fly with jetrockets, making them slightly faster and more agile than Ether, who had to keep herself in the air with muscle power. Energy blasts were fired non-stop from Team Kel's blasters in all directions. Despite them holding up quite well, being more agile and faster, they knew they were screwed if Ether's onslaught continued. She would overwhelm them like this, probably sooner than later. They had to break her concentration, and for that they had to hit the real Ether with a blast.

And so our three opponents were soaring and firing through the swarm of Ethers, trying to find the one Ether who controlled them all. It would have been difficult enough had they only had to face Ether and her swarm of past selves, but unfortunately, Munchin and myself were there as well. We knew, just like our opponents did, that the real Ether was the target of all attacks. Her ability of Time Duplication just made her the most dangerous and powerful of us all. So Munchin and I were there to make sure that her concentration would not be broken. It was quite easy to do so, too. Me and my mosquito friend just had to protect a random Ether, tricking Kel and his friends into thinking that we were guarding the real one. That worked for a while, but soon they caught on to the trick and Munchin and I had to change strategy.

We switched to the offense. After all, there was no fun in letting Ether handle them with us hovering in the swarm defensively. Munchin engaged Blaze in one-on-one combat, while I took on Gale. No matter the power that his anger for his earlier defeat granted him, my repulsion power would ensure my victory, I was sure.

My blue-and-silver opponent fired a number of blasts at me, but I reflected them all right back at him. As Gale dodged his own attack, I turned to Ether.

"You can shrink your army now, if you want," I told her, but she shook her head.

"Not a chance, Icy," Ether replied, "I'll make sure that these losers suffer a total defeat, and fifty me's will do just that." She then sought out Kel in the swarm of her past selves. Once she had found him, she commanded her entire army of Time Duplicates to attack the red-and-silver leader of the opposing team. I almost felt sorry for Kel. Just then, however, I was hit in the side by a blast from Gale, reminding me that I had a battle to win myself.

"You are going to regret that," I said to my opponent matter-of-factly. The blast that had struck me didn't really hurt all that much, but the idea of being hit at all by the opposing team injured my pride. And so, I attacked. I started to trigger my power of repulsion, but Gale had caught on well to that trick now and many successive shots fired at me prevented me from concentrating. And if I couldn't concentrate and focus, I couldn't use my powers. Out of sheer necessity, I was forced to land, but that didn't mean my opponent had gained any advantage over me. With a smirk I steered myself to drop in the murky waters of the swap. With a splash I submerged in the dark depths, leaving Gale clueless as to where I was.

Not that my foe seemed to mind that. He just started firing blasts in all directions, as fast as a machinegun. Sooner or later, he was bound to hit me, even underwater. Well, he would hit me sooner or later if I didn't posses repulsion powers. He could fire as fast as he wanted, but if most of his shots missed, I was free to concentrate and focus on using my powers against him, and not just on the water surrounding me. Naturally the murky water blinded me as much as it did him, but as Gale was firing like a maniac for the moment, locating him in the air above the swamp wasn't difficult. Once I was certain of his location, I swam until I was right under him, then repelled myself from the swampfloor as forcefully as possible. I shot up through the waters like a rocket and quickly emerged from the dirty swamp, vegetation and mud clinging to my insect-like form.

But I didn't care about that. I cared about ramming into my foe, which I successfully did. Sure he had seen me and tried to knock me back in the swamp with more attacks, and of course I was hit a lot, but it didn't matter. The force behind his blasts wasn't as great as the force with which I had repelled myself. As of such, he couldn't stop my ascend. I struck Gale head-first, then immediately struck out with my bladed forelimbs. The spiked, razor sharp pincers ripped through my foe's armour and damaged his vulnerable flesh underneath. Gale attempted to kick me, but I was ready for him and plunged both blades on my legs forward, stabbing them straight through his leg and hip. My opponent cried out in pain as blood began to leak from the wound. I ripped both my spiked limbs from his body as painfully as possible, being a real sadist for doing so. But I didn't give a damn. This was all the Occuria's game. They wanted a show? I'd give them one.

As Gale doubled over, clutching his pierced leg and hip, I raised my forelimbs again and empowered them with my power of repulsion. Faster than the eye could witness and with the strength of a thousand blows I attacked, stabbing my defenceless opponent in the back and striking him down towards the swamp. Gale plunged into the foul waters and did not emerge again.

Satisfied that was over with, I turned to see how my friends were doing. Munchin was finishing up his fight with Blaze, having managed to close in on his black-armoured opponent and lash out with his four clawed hands. Blaze on his part caught the blow with the grand shield mounted on his shoulder, so that all Munchin did was give it some scratches. My mosquito-like friend remained unfazed, however, and simply struck out again and again, relentlessly attacking and hacking away at Blaze. Realization hit me, and I understood what Munchin was trying to do. With that shield of his, Blaze had a very good defence, one that was hard to pass for one whose only power was superhuman strength. But no matter how good his defence, Blaze was still human, er, part-human and could still grow tired. With Munchin this close and attacking so furiously, he couldn't get in a shot with his weapon. So the only question here was who would tire out first: Munchin or Blaze?

After just one more minute, the answer seemed to be Blaze. Perhaps it was the desire to go home, or just being stronger after being turned into a bug, but Munchin didn't slow down his attacks in the least, while his foe was having more and more difficulties catching the swipes on his shield. My mosquito-like friend started to add kicks to the swipes and strikes with his arms, giving Blaze even more trouble. One kick got lucky and passed Blaze's shield, hitting the man in the stomach. It gave Munchin the opening he needed, and he threw a punch at his foe with all his might. Blaze caught it on the shield, but to my amazement it shattered under the force of Munchin's blow. The punch sent Blaze flying, but Munchin grabbed hold of his leg, whirled him around in the air a few times and then threw him down towards a very hard rock below with all his might. Blaze soared towards it and hit solid rock, but the force with which he was thrown was so great that it shattered under him, covering him with debris. Kinda like in all those anime shows were characters are knocked through mountains and stuff.

If I still had thumbs, I would have given my friend a thumbs-up, but I didn't have them so I couldn't do that. But I was pleased with his victory all the same. We both went to look at how the third member of our group was faring against the leader of the enemy team. With her power of Time Duplication, surely Ether would have won by now?

As it turned out, she hadn't. In fact, she didn't even have Time Duplicates surrounding her and she looked quite beaten. The jaws of me and Munchin dropped in shock. Was Ether actually loosing? Her opponent, Kel, was continuously firing a barrage of blasts at her, hitting our beetle-like friend with the scarab head, preventing her from focussing and using her power. Kel must have gotten a lucky shot in before and hit the real Ether, breaking her concentration and making her Time Duplicates disappear. Once on her own, the field was evened a lot more, and with his jet rockets Kel had superior speed. And unlike his two team members, he had another weapon besides his Blaster: his shield with spinning blades.

"I know you too well, Ether," we heard him say. "Even looking like that, I can still tell the real you out of fifty duplicates. Too bad, eh?"

The red-and-silver warrior fired one more barrage of energy blasts at his former friend, then immediately rocketed towards her with the blades on his shield spinning. Even as Ether defended herself against the energy blasts, Kel circled around her at great speed, striking her over and over again with the blades on his shield. Ether's armour started to wear away and cracked in a few places, allowing her foe to damage her soft flesh underneath. But she'd be damned if she let out a cry of pain.

"We gotta help her, Icy!" Munchin said to me, an urgent tone in his voice. But I shook my head and held out a bladed limb to prevent him from lifting of and go help Ether.

"We'd damage her pride, Munchin," I told my mosquito friend. "Besides, I know Ether by now, she'll come through, you'll see."

Munchin glanced at me, then at Ether, and then at me again. He looked worried for a moment, then crossed his arms and nodded. "You're right. She'll kick his sorry behind."

As if she had heard us, the yellow-and-black armoured female member of our team suddenly struck out with one of her pincer-like hands. Regardless of the fact that Kel was still zooming around her and hitting her at great speed, she managed to grab him somehow. With her free pincer, she gave him a good punch in the face. While Kel counted stars for the moment, she ripped his weapons out of his hands and threw them away carelessly. They landed with a splash in the swamp and sank out of sight. Then she gripped her foe around the neck and squeezed.

"I don't need any Time Duplicates to beat you, Kel," she hissed venomously. "We're going to find those keystones and get our real bodies back, and there's not a damn thing you can do about it!"

With that said, she punched him in the gut repeatedly, while tightening her grip around his throat. Before we knew it, the leader of a guild of fanfic writers back in the real world had passed out under the combined pressure of lacking oxygen and repeated punching. With a snort, Ether threw him away over her shoulder. Her red-and-silver armoured, defeated foe hit the waters just as his weapons had, and soon enough joined them on the bottom of the swamp.

Satisfied that was over with, Ether winged herself over towards Munchin and me.

"Well then, that's that," she said with casual delight. "We kicked their asses, and hopefully made the message clear: the keystones are ours."

"They'd have to be very thick-headed to not understand it now," Munchin agreed with a smirk. "But next time we fight, Ether, don't make it look like you're loosing again, okay? I was worried there for a moment."

"As if Kel could ever beat me when I put my mind on something," Ether snorted as she crossed her arms, seemingly offended by Munchin's words.

"Yeah, well, that's what Icy implied earlier," our mosquito-like friend replied with a shrug.

I had followed the conversation with only one ear, my attention being more drawn to the swamp where our opponents had fallen into. If they didn't wake up from their beating soon, they might drown. I told this worry to my friends, but, as expected, they only raised an eyebrow and shrugged.

"So what?" Ether said, "They brought it down upon them themselves. Let them drown, for all I care. I mean, if they do, it means they were weak in the end and not fit for Ivalice at all."

"I suppose you're right," I agreed slowly. I sighed, gave the swamp one last look, then turned away from it. "Well now, we kicked their sorry behinds, so let's find the final two keystones, shall we?"

My companions nodded, and together we flew off, away from the battlefield where we had crushed Team Kel. It was time to find the final two pieces of the puzzle that would get us home and give us our real bodies back. None of us noticed the bubbles of air coming up to the surface of the swamp, as something stirred beneath the murky water.

---

**Next chapter: the search for the final two keystones begins and the fight in the Nabreus Deadlands reaches its ultimate climax!**

**Only two more chapters to go and this is done. I hope to finish this before 2009 is over, but I'm not promising anything… I know myself and my attitude towards deadlines.**


	9. The Last Stand

**9. The Last Stand**

"Damn," I cursed as I sank down on the fallen tree that has been serving as my bed during my stay here in the swamp as an oversized insect. "We gave Kel and his team the beating of their lives yesterday, found five of the keystones, searched the whole day now for the last one and… nothing."

"It truly sucks," Munchin agreed. He threw his four hands in the air and swore. "We covered all areas of the swamp that we hadn't searched yet, even the campsite of our lovely opponents, and still we didn't find that damn sixth keystone."

"Maybe the Occuria hid it to prevent their entertainment from ending too soon," Ether offered, sounding just as pissed-off as we were after a day of fruitless searching. "That would just be the kind of thing they'd love to do."

"Can't argue with you there," I nodded. "But I don't think they are that stupid. They know that if they break the rules they themselves made, we'd go on a rampage."

"Damn right we would," Munchin hissed as he threw another log on the fire.

"So if the Occuria didn't take it, and we looked everywhere, even underwater, then where is it?" Ether demanded, crossing her arms. "You don't suppose Kel could have it, do you, Icy? We haven't seen him anywhere since yesterday. Same for Gale and Blaze."

"Indeed, and that is what worries me," I replied slowly. "What if they had the keystone all along, so that when even if we beat them, we still wouldn't win?"

"For all you know, they could have drowned in the swamp when we tossed them in it," Munchin offered, sounding like he didn't really believe what he was saying himself.

I scoffed. "Please, it's Kel we're talking about. He really wouldn't allow himself to die so lamely by simply drowning in a dirty swamp."

"Point taken, but then where are they?" Ether snapped angrily. "We looked everywhere in the swamp today, and I mean really everywhere. Not a sign of them. And they can't have left the swamp, for that's against the rules."

My gaze drifted away from the campfire and came to a halt to the great shadow of the ruins of the capital in the middle of the great swamp.

"Maybe, Ether," I said quietly. "Maybe they haven't left the swamp at all. Maybe they fled and hid in there…" I motioned to the Necrohol of Nabudis. "Technically, going in there doesn't count as leaving the Deadlands… And there's a whole network of tunnels, halls and rooms in there that we haven't searched yet."

"Icarax has a point," Munchin said to the only female member of our little group. "After their defeat, the Necrohol would indeed be a logical place to hide themselves with the keystone. One can easily fortify himself in one of its chambers, and its riddled with traps. It would be perfect for three defeated guys."

"Then what are we waiting for?" Ether said, standing up and spreading her beetle-like wings. "I don't know about you two, but I'm truly sick of being an insect. So let's not waste time and go over there now. It's time to exterminate some pests once and for all."

---

With Ether saying it like that and glaring at you, you don't argue, you simply nod and follow her. That's exactly what Munchin and I did. We quietly agreed with her and flew towards the fallen city. We made no sound as we softly dropped on a roof that had a hole in it, almost being true spirits of the mist.

"There's no telling where they are in there," Munchin whispered to us. "So let's stick together and not be rash. For once, we're at the disadvantage here. There's little space in the corridors to fly, so we'll be vulnerable to any traps they may have placed."

"Munchin is right," I agreed with a nod. "So let's keep our eyes very wide open. If anybody notices something, or even thinks he heard or saw something, tell the others. Better to be safe than sorry. If we loose in there, all our efforts up until now will have been for naught. Cause if they trap us in there, nothing will stop Kel and his team from getting their hands on _our_ keystones."

"Like hell I'm going allow that to happen," Ether growled, after which she did promise not to be rash. With that being said, we quietly descended through the hole into the dark, eerie place known as the Necrohol of Nabudis.

---

I never liked this place, not even when I was still a human teenager simply playing Final Fantasy XII on his Playstation 3. It was eerie, the monsters tough, the traps agitating and overall gave a depressing feeling, what with it being the ruins of a city and all. The only good thing about the Necrohol of Nabudis was that you could get Chaos and the Zodiac Lance here. Both of which I got, but that is kind of besides the point.

Suffice to say that stalking through the dead city as an oversized insect in real life didn't improve my vision of the place much. Monsters were everywhere, too, and it was a pain to fight them off while trying not to make any sound. Most of the time it was me doing the job, simply using my repulsion power to make the air around a monster crush it, or make some of its own limbs or vital organs repel it, that sort of stuff. Then when it was dead, quietly allowing it to gently drift towards the floor. That took a lot of time and effort, but we had no choice. We didn't know where the enemy was, if they were even here in the first place. So we had to try to keep our presence a secret for as long as possible.

We searched through the whole upper level of the Necrohol, but found precious little aside from some knots of rust and monsters. Which could only mean that either the keystone was deeper inside the ruined city, or that it wasn't here at all. Seeing no other option, we flew down the stairs leading to a lower level of the eerie ruins, ready to search there. Ether went first, with me bringing up the rear. We flew, all three of us, just a feet above the floor, to avoid making noise when walking. There was considerable strain on my mind by having to constantly focussing on repelling myself from the floor, yet the ceiling at the same time to prevent myself from shooting through the roof.

We cleared the lower level too without finding a thing except more monsters and a Zodiac Lance.

"Well, that was a waste of time," Ether growled. "We've now looked absolutely everywhere and still didn't find that damn final keystone, or Kel and his buddies!"

I was about to agree, when a light suddenly appeared above my head as I realized something. Ether and Munchin frowned at the lamp, but I ignored that for now.

"I just realized… We searched everywhere, yes… Except for the sealed rooms. You know, where Chaos and those two other bosses are sealed?" I explained hurriedly. Munchin and Ether's eyes widened and they got a look on their faces that told me they felt like slapping themselves on the head for overlooking such a thing. Satisfied, I extinguished the lamp.

"Icy's right, those are the only three places we haven't looked at yet, so let's go and search each of them," Ether said, eager to get into some action.

"I've got a better idea," Munchin interrupted, as he grabbed Ether by the arm to make sure she didn't fly off. "Let's go to the place where Chaos was sealed. Knowing Kel, he would go to the room where the big boss of this place resides. That's the kind of person he is."

---

The gates were shut, but not locked. Yet, since we didn't have the medal that made them open, that didn't matter anyway, we couldn't get in the normal way. I could try and repel the gates away from each other, but somehow I doubted I had the mental strength. Repelling yourself, or an enemy, is one thing. Repelling gates of more than a ton each is in an entirely different league. Seeing my hesitation, Munchin decided this was his moment to shine. Confidently he marched up to the gates, before forcing his four armoured and clawed hands between the two incredibly heavy gates.

Before the wide eyes of me and Ether, Munchin used his inhuman strength to open the gates, that kept the Esper Chaos from leaving this cursed place, with nothing but muscle. The feat did take all of his strength, that much was obvious, as when he had forced the gates apart far enough for the rest of us to slip through, he fell to his knees, panting heavily. If he still could have sweated then, I dare say he would have been drenched in it. I wanted to pat his shoulder in a congratulating way, but I no longer had hands to do that with, so I refrained from doing it at all. Ether helped our mosquito friend to his feet, and then we went inside.

The first thing we noticed when we entered was that the room was totally empty. No Esper or Team Kel in sight. Had Kel and his team rid the Necrohol of Chaos, or somebody else? Had team Kel even been here? We could get in here thanks to Munchin his inhuman strength. Nobody on team Kel had that, and I doubted they could have gotten their hands on the medal that opened this place. So they never could have been here in the first place, I realized. Why didn't I think of that sooner, before we made Munchin exhaust himself so much?

My thoughts were interrupted when Ether cried out:

"Damn it, Icy, good thing we listened to you. Look, it's the keystone!"

Munchin and I snapped our heads in the direction Ether was pointing. And sure enough, there, on the floor at the centre of the room, was the final piece of our key to getting our normal bodies back. Alone and unguarded, not even by an Esper. Suffice to say none of us bought it.

"That's a trap if I ever saw one," Munchin scoffed, crossing his arms.

"Very true," I agreed. "The question is, who made it: the Occuria, or Kel and his friends?"

"Does it matter?" Ether wanted to know.

"Very much," came my reply. "If the Occuria set it, then it is meant to be overcome somehow, meaning there's a way to get the keystone. If Kel and his team set the trap, it's meant to do one thing only: bring us down."

"You got a point, again." Ether's eyes narrowed and she too crossed her arms. Carefully our beetle-like friend with the scarab head observed the keystone lying just a few steps ahead of us. Our key to freedom, so close to coming into our possession. Yet it was the fact that it was the last one, that made Ether, and the rest of us, so cautious. The Occuria and Kel would both want to defend this last one as good as possible, both for their own reasons. The Occuria wanted their entertainment to last some more, Kel and his friends wanted to prevent us from taking us all home. Whatever the trap, it would be one with enough power to stop us, at least for a while.

"Say, Icy," Munchin began. "Can't you, I don't know, repel the keystone towards us?"

"That's not a bad idea," I answered slowly. "But what if the trap will be triggered by moving the keystone?"

Ether seemed to be getting stressed, and for good reason. It was extremely irritating to see our ticket to our normal bodies laying just in front of our noses, while we couldn't just go and get it.

"You know what," the only female of our little group said curtly. "Forget all this stressing about triggering the trap or not. I'm going in for it."

Before either of us could respond, she began pacing towards the keystone with big strides. When Munchin and I finally recovered from her hasty, rash decision, we moved in to stop her. And that's when it happened. We were perhaps only five steps away from the keystone, when three energy blasts came from behind us, from outside the room, and hit the ceiling above our heads. Damaged and corroded by years of contact with mist, the roof gave out, and tons of rubble rained down on us.

I tried to keep them off me with my repulsion power, but some of those pieces of debris weighed more than a ton, as not only the ceiling, but rubble from the floor above also came down. My mind gave out under the strain and my repulsion power faded. A second later, I was knocked to the floor, and together with my companions, buried under tons of stone.

---

When the dust settled down, there was not a sign of live coming from under the pile of debris. Assuming we were death, team Kel victoriously strode into the room. In his hand, the red-and-silver leader of the opposite team held a little gift of the Occuria: the medal that opened this room. After their crushing defeat the day before, team Kel had taken the only keystone they still possessed with them into the Necrohol of Nabudis. There they made a deal with the Occuria: the medal for more entertainment. With that medal, not a room in the ruins was unreachable for them, and with that in mind they had set a trap.

Knowing full well that Munchin and Ether knew how Kel thought, at least somewhat, they placed the keystone inside the chamber of the big boss of the ruins. Chaos protested, naturally, but Kel and his team kindly convinced him to fuck off. Then they weakened the ceiling so much that one more round of blasts would bring it down. With the trap set, they had simply hidden themselves until we had entered the Necrohol, and then started stalking us as we stalked through the ruins ourselves. As soon as we were inside the chamber of the Esper, the trap had been sprung, thus resulting in us being in our current predicament: buried under tons of stone.

"That went well," Kel smirked, kicking a pebble out of his way as he strode over to the keystone and retrieved it. "They went down, probably forever, the keystone is still ours and the ones they gathered are ripe for picking."

"Never thought you'd win by using your brain instead of brawn, Kel," Gale laughed as he leaned on Blaze. The wounds he had received during his battle with me yesterday had still not healed, at all.

In fact, all members of team Kel were in quite a bad shape, no thanks to the battles they had fought with us over the possession of the keystones. Gale was limping, because of me stabbing straight through his leg and hip yesterday. Blaze had dents all over his armour, and a continuous headache thanks to the beating Munchin had given him. Kel still had a sore throat from where Ether had squeezed him until he passed out, and there was a big dent in his helmet, also thanks to Ether, more precisely, the punch she had dealt to his face.

"Yeah well, miracles do happen, what can I say?" Kel grinned. He gazed at the pile of debris under which we were buried alive. "Regardless of how we did it, we still won. Despite all their victories, the final victors are still us. So let's go get the other keystones they gathered and give them to the Occuria so we can finally leave this swamp and explore the rest of Ivalice!"

"I'm all for it," Blaze replied. He made a nod to the pile of rubble that covered us. "I doubt they have any complaints."

Blaze, however, spoke a little too soon. For sure, if it had just been me and Ether, we would have died there and then. But it wasn't just me and her, Munchin was with us as well. And while in the past he had complained a lot that he didn't have any fancy power like me and Ether did aside from his brute strength, it was his brute strength that proved to be the most valuable and lifesaving power of all.

Despite being exhausted from forcing the gates open earlier, despite having tons of rubble on him, our mosquito-like friend was still conscious, and he had heard every word of the opposing team. It filled him with anger, and that anger in turn gave him the strength he needed to rise to his feet again. With inhuman strength, and while letting out a savage roar, our friend pushed the boulder crushing him off himself with his four arms. Broken, bruised and dented he might be, but most of all he was alive, and didn't look like he was going down any time soon.

"Hey bastards!" he growled at the stunned team Kel. "We ain't quite finished with you yet!"

A beastly cry escaped the enraged mosquito, and he grabbed the nearest boulder, its weight approximately a ton or two, and threw it at our foes. While they were busy running for their lives as two tons of solid rock headed their way, Munchin started digging us out. With his four arms and monstrous strength, he made quick work of the pile of debris. Chunks of rock flew everywhere, as Munchin carelessly tossed them over his shoulder while trying to save us. Soon enough the bruised and battered form of Ether was uncovered, followed quickly by mine. He grabbed each of us with a hand, while slapping us across the face with his two other ones.

"Common you two, wake up! Don't you dare die on me here, we've got some final ass kicking to do, damn it!"

After a few of those hard slaps, we slowly came to.

"Ugh," I groaned. "What happened? I feel like a mountain fell down on me."

"Close enough," Munchin snapped back as he placed me on my four feet. "Now remain upright and prepare that repelling trick of yours. We've got a keystone to conquer."

Those words dropped me with a crash in reality, and I shook my head to make the last remaining amounts of dizziness go away. I remembered what had happened now, and for the first time since arriving in this nightmare, I was glad to be an armoured insect. My metallic skin was what had kept me alive long enough for Munchin to dig me out. Glancing to my left, I could see Munchin setting Ether on her feet. Our strong-willed friend was coming to as well. Unlike me, however, her first words weren't something among the lines of asking where she was. No, they were quite… different.

"Where are those assholes?!" she cried out, her blood boiling. Munchin and I kindly pointed in the direction of Kel, Gale and Blaze, who had somehow avoided all debris Munchin had tossed around while digging us out, and had just started firing at us in a last, desperate effort to keep their keystone safe.

But we had had enough. We were now totally sick of it. Sick of the battling former friends for the sake of entertaining the Occuria. Sick of being monstrosities struggling to survive and adapt. Sick of being stuck in this stinking, muddy swamp. Sick of having to suck things dry like a leech in order to feed. Damn it all, was what we were thinking. Damn it all to hell!

And so we struck out, pushing our broken bodies far beyond their limit, but not caring that we did so. I tapped into my mental strength so much that I knew I would have an ill-making headache for the rest of the month. But I didn't give a shit about it. I just did it, and called upon my powers, with which I repelled all of the blasts fired at us. Thus I created an opening for my friends and comrades, and they seized the opportunity.

Ether called upon her power of time duplication, and summoned two of her past selves to her side. While I kept our three foes in place with more repulsion power - lengthening the duration of the headache I would get after this to two full months at the very least – the three of them dove in and grabbed one foe each. The struggling team Kel were no match for an absolutely enraged and pissed off Ether, and her grip was like bonds of steel.

Munchin, finally, had grabbed the biggest, longest piece of debris he could find and readied it like a bat, not caring that his muscles were screaming in protest. He nodded to the three Ethers. With a devious delight, the first Ether threw Blaze with all her might to Munchin, who batted the black-armoured warrior away with his boulder. Blaze crashed through three of four walls before finally coming to halt, totally defeated. Gale and Kel soon followed his example, each being batted in a different direction to make sure the both of them crashed through as many walls as Blaze did.

When the dust settled, the Necrohol of Nabudis had plenty of new doorways, and each member of team Kel had finally been defeated so crushingly that they would never rise again and attempt to take away our keystones, our normal bodies and our freedom. Once we were sure of this, we allowed ourselves to collapse, too. But not before Ether had picked up the final keystone, which Kel had dropped as soon as Ether had tossed him to Munchin to be batted away. She firmly held it in her pincer, which, if all went well, she would soon trade for her normal, human hands. We all savoured the feeling of victory, and then sank away into a well-deserved, much-needed and dreamless sleep.

The battle was over.

---

**Next chapter: the battle has ended, but will the Occuria keep their word? Read it all in the final chapter of "Spirits of the Mist"!**

**Oh, and Munchin, I'll ****miss this fic too. Being a bug grows on you. But on the other hand, it opens the way for a new adventure. How do you feel about being stuck (as a human) in the classical shooter Doom II with me, and shoot hellspawn to oblivion?**


	10. Aftermath

**10. Aftermath**

The three of us – me, Ether and Munchin – stood tensely before the leader of the Occuria and the one who got us into this in the first place: Gerun. Each of us gave him the coldest stare we could muster, but it didn't seem to bother him too much. Most of all, he looked disappointed that his entertainment show was over so soon.

After we woke up from our sleep after the final battle in the Necrohol of Nabudis, we had found Kel and his team still unconscious, and didn't give a damn about that. We took the keystone and departed, flying to the spot where we had hidden the rest of our keystones. There the three of us found out that the keystones could be fit together, like some sort of puzzle. The end result when all three came together was a human-figure standing in a pose like Da Vinci his Vitruvius man. When we touched it, Gerun appeared.

"Congratulations with successfully gathering all the keystones," the Occuria said, sounding totally unconvincing. "Could you three really not have taken it a bit easier and slower? We were having so much fun watching you."

"Not a chance," Ether snapped. "We got what we needed, god-boy, now change us back!"

"Fine, fine, you're right, you won. And I won't have it be said that we Occuria don't keep our word." The so-called god of Ivalice let out a deep sigh. "To reward you for entertaining us and gathering the keystones, each of you may do a wish and I'll grant it."

"Really?" Munchin asked sceptically.

"Yes, really," Gerun answered impatiently. "There's no catch, no trap, no hidden deal or anything. You can do a wish and I'll grant it. That's it. Now let's hear it."

"Give us our real bodies back, but let us keep our powers," was Ether's wish.

"Make it so that we'll be able to travel freely between our home world and Ivalice, and swear that you'll never, ever, bother us again," Munchin demanded.

Gerun tiredly closed his eyes, but accepted the demands. He glanced at me. "And what will your wish be?"

I thought about it for a moment. Ether and Munchin had already pretty much covered what I was going to wish initially. So I had to think for a moment for a good wish, but an idea came to mind quite quickly. A devious, evil smile appeared on my face as I voiced my request.

---

The following day, the three of us sat, in our normal bodies and all our wishes granted, victoriously in the Sandsea in Rabanastre. We had just gotten our drinks, and now raised our glasses together, to toast on an adventure well-ended.

"Let us drink to our normal bodies, our powers and Icy's wish," Ether proposed. Munchin and I saw no reason to complain, and clanked our glasses against hers.

"Though it has to be said, you are evil, Icarax," Munchin noted with a grin after taking a sip from his beverage.

"Kel will never forgive you, that's for sure," Ether added with a similar grin plastered on her face – a face that happed to be far more handsome now that it no longer looked like a scarab, but I guess the same could be said for all of us.

I shrugged. "What can I say? I'm good at holding grudges, and love taking revenge. Besides, I could have made their fate far worse. In all honesty, I held back."

"I suppose that's true…" the only female of our little group said. "Remind me to not go home as often as possible."

"I think that goes without saying, Ether," I replied with a smile. After taking another sip from my drink, I added: "So what are we gonna do next? There's a whole world out there that we can now explore as much as we like. Where do we go? Personally, I'd love to see the Phon Coast in real life."

"That's as good a place to start touring Ivalice as any," Munchin agreed. "Though let's take our time and see how Rabanastre looks from every angle in real life."

"You know, in the end you could say we should actually be grateful to the Occuria for what they did to us," I remarked thoughtfully. "If they hadn't, we would never have won their little game, and never would have had the chance to do our wishes and have them granted."

"True as that may be, that still doesn't make me feel even the slightest urge to forgive them," Ether snorted with disdain. "I still want to rip their innards out."

"Same here," Munchin agreed, nodding. "Though the wishes were an unexpected surprise."

"Well, let's not think about it too much then, and put this whole insect-business behind us," I decided with a smile, after which I downed the rest of my drink. "A new life starts today guys, so let's enjoy it regardless of how we got it."

My two friends agreed with that, and we fell silent for a moment. Regardless of what I said before, about putting it all behind me, I still found myself thinking of my time as an insect. It was almost too strange to believe, and to convince myself that it had, in fact, happened, I had decided to type this out on my computer should I ever go home for a moment. This morning I had woken up expecting to see my hands be blades, and was incredibly startled to see five moveable fingers instead. It was a relief, though. And I still had my repulsion power, which was what I had enjoyed most about my insect form. I could still fly now, Ether still call upon past selves of her, Munchin still was insanely strong. And we all looked good doing so.

Really, we looked good, we had powers, we had Ivalice, what more could a guy or girl want? Satisfied with the strange twist our lives had taken, we all leaned back in our chair to relax. Maybe I would even catch a short nap. Just as I was about to do that, Munchin's voice kept me awake.

"I wonder what Kel is doing now?"

---

The Nabreus Deadlands thought that after the weird events of the past few days, they'd be free from giant mechanical insects once we had left. Unfortunately, it thought wrong, as a red-and-silver insect-like being crawled through the mist on its four blade-like limbs. Flanking it were a black-and-silver, giant beetle, and a blue-and-silver mosquito. The red and silver one was muttering and grumbling, cursing my name.

Well, I suppose Kel had every right to hate me now, as my wish had been that whenever me, Ether and Munchin were in Ivalice, he and his friends would be stuck in that hateful swamp as insects, just like we had. Not being totally heartless, though, my wish allowed them to explore Ivalice as humans whenever me and my friends were no longer in this world. Too bad for them we quite enjoyed Ivalice, and didn't plan on going home a lot. Revenge is sweet indeed.

Kel let out a deep sigh as he stared tearfully at his now blade-like hands. Then, his sad cry resonated throughout all of the swamp, and all monsters for a moment looked in the direction of the cry in confusion.

"I WANT TO GO HOME!"

The End

**And that's it, my friends, the end of "Spirits of the Mist"! And I made it before 2010 started, if just barely. ****I enjoyed this little adventure of me, and I hope that whoever read this did as well.**

**Ether and Munchin, thanks for suffering through this with me, and Kel, Blaze and Gale, don't take it personally. It's just a story, after all! =)**

**Now what other adventures might await me and my friends? ****A story where I get trapped in the classical shooter "Doom II" or its amazing sequel "Final Doom: The Plutonia Experiment" is very tempting to write. Hmm…**

**Anyway, whatever I do after this, happy new year, and a fantastic 2010!**

**-Icarax-**


End file.
